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Biography

Äsel Kadyrkhanova is a visual artist and researcher with a PhD from the University of Leeds. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam. Her research looks at art as a medium of memory, with a focus on post-Soviet postcolonial Central Asia. She explores transgenerational memory and trauma, addressing the burden of silenced pasts and unmourned personal losses.


Kadyrkhanova works across drawing, textile, installation art and moving image. Her research interests include haptic visuality, embodiment, affect and trauma. Her works have been shown in QAGOMA (Brisbane), Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), Centre for Heritage, Art and Textile (Hong Kong), documenta 15 (Kassel), Calvert Foundation (London), Hackelbury Fine Art (London), Tselinny Centre for Contemporary Culture (Almaty), Kazakh National Museum of Arts (Almaty), YARAT (Baku), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow) among others. Publications include chapters in edited volumes, Stalinism in Kazakhstan: History, Memory, Representation (Lexington Books, 2021) and Suture: Reimagining Ornament (Hong Kong: MillCHAT, 2023), and other.

 

Before her current postdoctoral position, she worked as an Assistant Professor of Fine Art at KIMEP University, Kazakhstan. 

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Education

2016 – 2021

2009 – 2011

2005 – 2007

2001 – 2005

PhD (Practice-led) School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (FAHACS), University of Leeds

MFA Fine Art, Newcastle University

MA Painting, Kazakh National Academy of Arts

BA Painting, Kazakh National Academy of Arts

Fellowships & Scholarships

2023

2018

2016

2009

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Project title: Artistic Research and Contested Heritage, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam

CEC Artslink Fellowship, USA

Leeds Anniversary Research Scholarship, University of Leeds

Bolashak International Scholarship of the President of Kazakhstan

Current events and collaborations

Co-organiser of Postcolonial Hauntologies: Art in the Presence - Absence of the Past, international symposium held jointly at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Concordia University (Canada).

Co-founding member of Suture: Central Asian Artistic Research Group

2025

2022 - ongoing

Publications

Dreamscapes, Traumascapes, in Your Own Spaces: Multiperspectivity and Spatial Practices in Audiovisual Forms of Knowledge Production, edited volume (HSLU and Diaphanes Press, 2025)

 

Stitch, Unstitch, in Suture: Reimagining Ornament, collective volume (Almaty | Hong Kong: MillCHAT, 2023)

Becoming a Secondary Witness: Art, Trauma and the (Non-) Memory of the Kazakh Famine, 1930 - 1933, in Witnessing, Memory and Crisis, conference proceedings (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022)

 

The Endless Time After: Art as a Medium of Memory in Post-Stalinist Kazakhstan, in Stalinism in Kazakhstan: History, Memory, Representationed. Zh. Abylkhozhin, M. Akulov, A.Tsay (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021)

Selected exhibitions and screenings

2025

2023

2023

Asia Pacific Triennial Cinema. All the Dreams We Dream. Central Asian Short films, QAGOMA, Brisbane

Medium and Memory, Hackelbury Fine Art, London

Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow

2023

2023

2022

2021

2019

2018

2018

2018

2017

2017

2017

2017

2016

2013

goEast Film Festival, Weisbaden

Clouds, Power and Ornament: Roving Central Asia, Centre for Heritage, Art, and Textile (MillC.H.A.T.), Hong Kong

documenta 15  - Davra Collective's public programme, Kassel

Calvert Journal Film Festival, London

Living Memory, Almaty City Museum, Almaty

CITATION, within the European Artistic Research Network (EARN) conference, Leeds

Focus Kazakhstan: Post-Nomadic Mind, Wapping Project, London

At the Corner: City, People, Places, Tselinny Centre for Contemporary Art, Almaty

Mixer Sessions III, Mixer Gallery, Istanbul

Windows of Tolerance (solo show), Project Space, University of Leeds

Suns and Neons above Kazakhstan, Yarat Contemporary Museum of Art, Baku

Internal Memory: Not Enough Space?  Video screening programme by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow

Cartography of the Real, Central Exhibition Hall, Almaty

1938: Territory of Memory, State Museum of Fine Arts named after Kasteev, Almaty

Selected artist Residencies

2023

2018

2015

2015

UNIDEE Residency: Neither at Land nor at Sea, Module V, Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy

 

Artist  in Residence, California College of the Arts, USA

Protagonists: The Invisible Pavillion of Kazakhstan, group residency by IADA during 56th Venice Biennale. St Erasmo, Italy

The Eighth River, group residency and land art exhibition, Ile Alatau National Park, Kazakhstan

Artist Talks

2024

2023

2018

2018

2018

2018

On Artmaking, Dreams and Legacies of Violence, Limestone Books, Maastricht

 

Paired session with Lia Dostlieva, ARRG (Artistic Research Research Group), University Theater, Amsterdam

 

Artist Lecture, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, USA

Artist talk, Silk Road House, Berkeley, CA, USA

Paired dialogue with Inga Lace at Artists and Global Citizenship: CEC Artslink Assembly, Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University, USA

In conversation with Dr Katy Deepwell, Almagul Menlibayeva, within Focus Kazakhstan project, Wapping Project, London, UK

Teaching

Spring 2024

2021 – 2023​​

2019 – 2021

​​​​

Guest Tutor: MA Artistic Research, University of Amsterdam

 

Assistant Professor of Fine Art, College of Humanities and Education, Kimep University

Teaching Assistant, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (FAHACS) University of Leeds

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© 2022 Asel Kadyrkhanova

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