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.
Education
2016 – 2021 PhD (Practice-led) School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (FAHACS), University of Leeds
2009 – 2011 MFA Fine Art, Newcastle University
2005 – 2007 MA Painting, Kazakh National Academy of Arts
2001 – 2005 BA Painting, Kazakh National Academy of Arts
Fellowships & Scholarships
2023 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Project title: Artistic Research and Contested Heritage, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam
2018 CEC Artslink Fellowship, USA
2016 Leeds Anniversary Research Scholarship, University of Leeds
2009 Bolashaq International Scholarship of the President of Kazakhstan
Recent and upcoming
February 2026 Sonic Acts Biennial: Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities, Framer Framed, Amsterdam
June - December 2025 8-month residential fellowship at Artist Residency Schloss Balmoral
March 2025 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).
Publications
Artistic Research as Aesthetic Resistance: Reframing Turksib (1929) through the Lens of the Kazakh Famine, in Cinema and the City in the Age of Planetary Urbanisation, eds. N, Bathla et al. (Berlin: Jovis, 2026)
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, Representation, ed. Zh. Abylkhozhin, M. Akulov, A.Tsay (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021)
Selected exhibitions and screenings
2026 Sonic Acts Biennial, Framer Framed, Amsterdam
2025 18th International Triennial of Textile: Deconstruction / Reconstruction, Central Museum of Textile Art, Lodz
2025 Asia Pacific Triennial Cinema. All the Dreams We Dream. Central Asian Short films, QAGOMA, Brisbane
2025 Flow: Central Asian Video Art Programme, Three Highgate, London
2023 Medium and Memory, Hackelbury Fine Art, London
2023 Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
2023 goEast Film Festival, Weisbaden
2023 Clouds, Power and Ornament: Roving Central Asia, Centre for Heritage, Art, and Textile (MillC.H.A.T.), Hong Kong
2022 documenta 15 - Davra Collective's public programme, Kassel
2021 Calvert Journal Film Festival, London
2019 Living Memory, Almaty City Museum, Almaty
2018 CITATION, within the European Artistic Research Network (EARN) conference, Leeds
2018 Focus Kazakhstan: Post-Nomadic Mind, Wapping Project, London
2018 At the Corner: City, People, Places, Tselinny Centre for Contemporary Art, Almaty
2017 Mixer Sessions III, Mixer Gallery, Istanbul
2017 Windows of Tolerance (solo show), Project Space, University of Leeds
2017 Suns and Neons above Kazakhstan, Yarat Contemporary Museum of Art, Baku
2017 Internal Memory: Not Enough Space? Video screening programme by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
2016 Cartography of the Real, Central Exhibition Hall, Almaty
2013 1938: Territory of Memory, State Museum of Fine Arts named after Kasteev, Almaty
Selected Artist Residencies
2025 Artist fellowship, Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Germany
2023 UNIDEE Residency: Neither at Land nor at Sea, Module V, Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy
2018 CEC Artslink Artist in Residence, California College of the Arts, USA
2015 Protagonists: The Invisible Pavilion of Kazakhstan, organised by IADA during 56th Venice Biennale. St Erasmo, Italy
2015 The 8th River, group residency and land art exhibition, Ile Alatau National Park, Kazakhstan
Selected Artist Talks
Selected Artist Talks
2024 On Artmaking, Dreams and Legacies of Violence, Limestone Books, Maastricht
2023 ARRG sessions: Paired talk with Lia Dostlieva, University Theatre, Amsterdam
2018 Artist Lecture, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2018 Artist talk, Silk Road House, Berkeley, CA, USA
2018. Artists and Global Citizenship: CEC Artslink Assembly, paired dialogue with Inga Lace, Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University, USA
2018 In conversation with Dr Katy Deepwell, Almagul Menlibayeva, within the Focus Kazakhstan project, Wapping Project, London, UK
Teaching
Spring 2024 Guest Tutor: MA Artistic Research, University of Amsterdam
2021 – 2023 Assistant Professor of Fine Art, College of Humanities and Education, Kimep University
2019 – 2021 Teaching Assistant, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (FAHACS), University of Leeds