Aisha Jandosova (CA Research Group)

Aisha Jandosova is a Kazakh-Kyrgyz diasporic artist, designer, learner and educator, currently based in Providence, United States. Jandosova’s work is centred around making room for and creating healing spaces with/for her people. She is co-founder of BABALAR PRESS, an experimental research, writing and publishing initiative for relearning, reclaiming and reimagining Kazakh ancestral knowledges. In parallel, Jandosova is engaged in a long-term, process-based re-existencia (Achinte 2009, Tlostanova 2017) research, whereby she (re)makes and learns from the everyday cultural practices of her ancestors, with the dream of imagining more loving futures, grounded in pre-colonial Central Asian nomadic knowledges, values, relations and worldviews. So far, Jandosova’s learning journey has included creating a kïiz üy (yurt) for a 5-year old Aisha, celebrating – through reproduction in papercuts – oyıw-örnek (ornaments) on old syrmaq (felt patchwork carpets), as well as making her own shi (wool-wrapped reed mats), kïiz (felt) and yarn.