In Agil Abdullayev's three-channel video, trees are both trusted and protective protagonists. Radicals Between Trees and Dicks (2024) is the outcome of several years of research into queer cruising culture in Azerbaijan and neighboring countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia region. The term ‘cruising’ refers to the pursuit of sexual encounters between homosexual men in public spaces such as parks, or discreetly designated private spaces. Over the past five years, Abdullayev visited around thirty such sex spaces, documenting their own observations and recording the experiences of others in interviews, conversations, and visual recordings. The research dealt with the various facets of cruising in profoundly repressive societies in which homosexuality is still highly taboo and people are exposed to severe discrimination and violence due to their sexual orientation. In the resulting film Abdullayev blends elements of autobiography, reportage, choreography and sound design to create an intimate and joyful meditation on danger, desire and belonging.

Agil Abdullayev (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist working across film, photography, and painting. Their practice investigates shifting notions of identity, trauma, vulnerability, and escapism as they move through public and private memory. Often semi-biographical, Abdullayev’s films draw on childhood experiences and personal queer archives, expanding into work shaped by diaries, essays, and close collaboration with local communities. Through alter-egos, intimacy, self-reflection, and emotional extremities, they construct spaces of hyperpossibility where representations can be disrupted, re-articulated, and reinvented. Prizes include: second prize, Fluxus Museum Prize for Experimental Video (2025), the Golden Cube Award at Kassel Dokfest (2024), Seed Award from the Prince Claus Foundation (2022), Artlink Prize, SudKultur Fond 2022. Exhibitions and presentations include: MoMA Tbilisi; Istanbul Contemporary Istanbul; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; Tate, London; Liverpool Biennial; South London Gallery; and Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong. Residencies: Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Meet Factory, Cittadellarte, Goethe Institute, and Artlinks CEC.