Madina Zholdybekova is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator born in Kazakhstan. She addresses questions of women’s bodily integrity, sexuality, multi-dimensional motherhood, kelinism, decolonisation and authoritarian regimes, in work that includes illustration, weaving, sculpture, video and installation. Previously, Zholdybekova has collaborated with openDemocracy, Front Line Defenders and OSCE x CAYN. Her work has been exhibited at Documenta 15, Slavs and Tatars’ Pickle Bar, Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture and Garage Museum.
Aziza Shadenova is a Kazakh artist born in Uzbekistan. She graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2011. The majority of her work is based around humour and absurdism involved in perception of life, memories, womanhood and immigration, often focusing on untangling of her roots and thoughts as an immigrant, a woman, a wife, an artist and as a human being. For her, these are observations and engagements with the past and present, and an investigation […]
Yelena Vorobyeva is a Kazakh conceptual artist who works mainly with her partner Viktor Vorobyov as an artistic duo since the 1990s. Their usage of different genres and techniques results in multi-layered, often ironic, works focusing on post-Soviet realities of constant change, disorientation and their effects on everyday life. The artists have been compiling a precise record of the ephemeral and quotidian details of daily life. They do so in series, sorting images according to their typology. While seemingly insignificant, […]
Nazilya Nagimova is a visual artist born in 1982 in Kazan, the Republic of Tatarstan. Since 2004, she lives in Germany. She has been educated at the School of Arts in Kazan then the Academy of Münster, Germany. Nagimova works mainly with textile as a means to approach subjects of memory and identity. Recent exhibitions include Documenta 15 with the Davra collective.
Furqat Palvan-Zade is an independent curator, researcher, and filmmaker from Uzbekistan. Since 2014 he has been leading the syg.ma project – a community-run platform and an expanding archive of texts on society and art. This platform serves as an engine and a tool for launching various collaborative projects mapping an international community of writers, activists, artists and designers. As a filmmaker and a researcher, he is working on a series of experimental projects investigating the transient geographies and overlapping cultures […]
Jazgul Madazimova is an artist based in Bishkek and born in Kyrgyzstan. She is primarily interested in public and social practice art. She uses tools of art to work with the issues of women, migration and borders. Madazimova practices a collaborative and socially engaged approach integrating artists, communities and spaces. She studied International and Comparative Politics at the American University of Central Asia and contemporary art practices at ArtEast in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev are artistic duo based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. They graduated respectively in art academies in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in the late 1980s. Artists participated in numerous international exhibitions and biennials, including Aichi Triennale (2016), Sharjah Biennale (2007), Singapore Biennale (2006) and Venice Biennale (2005). Their solo shows were held at the Cube Project Space, Taipei (2013), Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan (2010), Winkleman gallery, New York (2006 -2009) and the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). Kasmalieva […]
Aziz Hazara is an artist who lives and works between Berlin and Kabul. The visual exploration of his works takes shape across variety of artistic media, from participatory installations to soundscapes, from video to photography, from text to programmed languages. His interest in the issues of memory, archive, surveillance of the panopticon and the politics of representation, is deeply entrenched in the geopolitics and the never-ending conflict that afflicts his native Afghanistan. The relevance of such issues however overcomes geographical […]
Bakhyt Bubikanova is a Kazakh artist who works with various media and techniques. Her practice encompasses video, performance, photography, drawing, painting, collage and installation. In addition to her formal education, Bubikanova was a student of the late leader and founder of art collective ‘Kyzyl Traktor’ Moldakul Narymbetov. In her signature expressive manner, Bubikanova explores the paradoxical landscape of everyday in contemporary Kazakhstan, she deconstructs and reflects upon the formal traditions of suprematism. To assemble and to create through deconstruction is […]
Alibay Bapanov was born in 1953 in Kzil-Orda region. In 1973 he finished the Art School of Almaty. In 1979 he was graduated from Moscow State Art Institute. Since 1981 Alibay Bapanov and Saule Bapanova have been members of the Artists Union of Kazakhstan. They took part in republican, All-Union and international exhibitions. Bapanovs’ works are found in state museums of Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, China, Turkey, Poland, Denmark. Selected works are now in private collections in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Moscow, Russia, […]