DAVRA COMMUNITY
DAVRA Research Group
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Aïda Adilbek is a multidisciplinary artist and curator based between Akjar and Duman (Almaty, Kazakhstan). In 2020 she graduated her MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London and co-founded Almaty-based artist collective MATA. Her main mediums are text, performance, photography and film.
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Dana Iskakova is an artist and cultural practitioner born in 1997 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her practice mainly focuses on participatory ‘imaginary’ art and explores human perception and imagination. She studied finance at the International IT University and liberal arts at Smolny College. Iskakova is a member of the MATA artist collective and the Artcom Platform Community. In 2023, Iskakova presented the printed magazine on fictional contemporary art called "If" and its first issue, created in collaboration with the MATA collective.
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Saodat Ismailova is a filmmaker and artist who graduated from Tashkent State Art Institute, Uzbekistan and Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts, France. Drawing on the cultural identities and vernacular histories of Central Asia, Saodat Ismailova’s films meditate on memory, spirituality, immortality, and extinction. Frequently based around oral stories in which women are the lead protagonists, and exploring systems of knowledge suppressed by globalized modernity, these consciousness expanding works hover between visible and invisible worlds. She initiated Davra research collective in Central Asia, 2021. In 2022 she participated in 59th Biennale of Venice and presented new work at documenta fifteen. In 2022, she received The Eye Art & Film Prize, Amsterdam. Her new film “Melted into the Sun” is presented at Nebula exhibition, commissioned by Fondazione in between Art and Film, Venice Biennale of Arts, 2024. Her works are in the collection of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Centre of Pompidou, Paris and others.
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Madina Joldybek is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, illustrator born in 1991 in Zhezkazgan (Kazakhstan), currently based in London. Her practice revolves around themes of women's bodily integrity, multi-dimensional motherhood, kelinism, identity and authoritarian regimes.
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Jazgul Madazimova, born in 1990, is an artist based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She uses the tools of art to work with the issues of women, migration and borders. Jazgul practices a collaborative and socially engaged approach integrating artists, spaces and communities.
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Zumrad is a photographer and filmmaker from Uzbekistan. She is a member of the Davra research group and a recent resident at Fabrica Research Centre. Holding a master's degree in Social Innovation from the London School of Economics and Political Science, she has focused on exploring the transformative potential of art in driving positive social change. Zumrad's artistic practice revolves around the exploration of interconnected themes, including decolonization, exploitation, ecology, agency and rethinking historical narratives through intersectional feminist perspective.
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Dilda Ramazan is a Kazakhstan-born art worker specializing in Central Asian contemporary art. She curates exhibitions and publications, writes on art and is currently pursuing her PhD at Sorbonne Université. In 2020, together with her colleagues, she co-founded MATA, an all-female art collective based in Kazakhstan. Ramazan is also part of Beyond the post-soviet, a collective which produces and dissiminates knowledge on regions previously referred to as ‘post-socialist’ countries.
DAVRA Research Collective documenta fifteen, 2022
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Benazir Ibraimova is a multidisciplinary artist, author. She was born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and currently based in Berlin. Benazir mainly works with graphic art, poetry, film and animation. Her practice revolves around ideas of poetic imagery, memory, existential crisis, the issues of woman and self-identity.
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Tokzhan Karatai is a composer, performer, and improviser born in 1994 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Currently living in Ankara, Turkey, where she is studying music composition with Onur Türkmen at Bilkent University. Before that, she studied music composition at the Kazakh National Conservatory with Bakhtyar Amanzhol.
Tokzhan is positioning herself as a performer of contemporary music on such a traditional Kazakh instrument - kobyz. Also, she composes for different kinds of compositions of instruments. Still, she pays special attention to Kobyz because she wants to bring this instrument into the world of contemporary music. The thing that should be noted is that her music is based on traditional Kazakh folk. Still, she is also interested in contemporary techniques of playing.
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Nazira Karimi is a multidisciplinary artist, born in 1996 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She is involved in multiple female artist collectives and platforms. Currently based between Almaty, Kazakhstan and Vienna, Austria. Her main interest is the intersectional feminist theory, dec olonial theory and collectivity, all within female communities.
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Munisa Kholkhujaeva is multidisciplinary artist, was born in 1997 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She studied BA in National Institute of Art and Design, Tashkent. After finishing her MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies in NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) Milan (2024), currently she is based in Tashkent and mostly interested in textile based experiments by using digital tools as a starting point. Her main interest is decentralization, nonhuman agencies and equal coexistence.
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Daria Kim is a visual artist born in 1998 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Now she is a student at Berlin University of the Arts. Daria primarily paints in oil and acrylic, while undergoing a process of developing her own artistic position, she is currently working with all sorts of techniques.
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Kokonja - (b.1996) is a young artist and DJ born in Aqmola oblysy, Zhalgyzqaragai, based Almaty. Her practice includes textile, photography and sound art. As generations of her maternal famale line used to be traditional craftswomen in felting, weaving and sewing Kokonja found the meaning to continue the mastery learning the almost lost knowledge, as well as remember and learn those women, their energy and sensual experience through the practice. She also appeal her memorie fixed in a sensual and tactile way according to her earlier child and younger years while living in a village. She tries to find some unseen primitive but rooted codes that unites all memory in the surroundings, in herself. She is a student of the most extraordinary kazakh contemporary artist Bakhyt Bubikanova, and often takes participation in her performances.
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Tillaniso Nuryoghdi (born 1993, in the Karakul district of Bukhara region, Uzbekistan) is a poet, writer and essayist . In 2014, she graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the National University of Uzbekistan, and was awarded her master’s degree there in 2016. She is currently a doctoral student in folklore at the Scientific Institute of Uzbek Language, Literature and Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan. In 2017, her collected poems, Olovrang Tuyon, was published, and in 2020 - Sunbula, a book of prose. In 2021, Tillaniso was named “Brightest Young Artist of the Year” and awarded the Tahsin Prize from the Uzbekistan Youth Union. Tillaniso Nuryogdi has written for several newspapers and magazines.
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Intizor Otaniyozova is a multidisciplinary artist based in Central Asia. Themes of her research are identity, ecology, feminism and Beyoncé. Participated in exhibitions in different countries of Asia and Europe. Also was published in literature volumes. Intizor’s upcoming documentary film called “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Side Chicks”.
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Aziza Pulatova (1998 b. In Tashkent) is a self-taught artist working in the direction of an art installation that mixes different materials – from plexiglass to nails, threads and wires. She studied at Westminster International University in Tashkent, which helped her develop management skills and apply them to the creative environment, thus Aziza found herself in the incarnation of a creative producer. Aziza is currently working as a creative producer in the video production company Hendrix and as a creative producer at MOC, organizing contemporary art festivals in Uzbekistan.
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Diana Rahmanova (born 1989, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan) is an artist, curator, researcher, journalist. Since 2011, she has been living in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She works in the field of contemporary art at the intersection of media and art in Central Asian countries. Installation artist, researcher and artist-in-residence, including those related to the preparation of food/recipes – she finds the process of artistic language, collectivity and social interactions through the joint preparation of food interesting. Exhibition artist in Kyrgyzstan (2012-2022), New York (2021) and Washington (2022). From 2012-2020, she was the director of group 705. At the moment, she is the director of the PF Cultural center “Kuduk” in Kyrgyzstan. Since 2021, curator of Art-Management, Da- ta-Art and Eco-Art projects in regions Kyrgyzstan.
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Odina Riskieva is an artist and photographer (born 1996, in Tashkent). She graduated from the Uzbekistan Republic Benkov Art College, and later studied at the Kamoliddin Behzod National Institute of Fine Art and Design in Uzbekistan. She now works freelance. Her main interest is the search for self through creativity and the study of the body; in her drawings oriental girls are often depicted in nature. She is interested in the connection between the body, the soul and the mind.
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Muhiddin Riskiev (born 1993, in Syrdarya, Gulistan, Uzbekistan) is a 3D artist, illustrator. He graduated from the Uzbekistan Republic Benkov Art College in the Faculty of Easel Painting, and later studied at the Kamoliddin Behzod National Institute of Fine Art and Design in the Department of “ Monumental Painting”. He studied for her Master’s degree there in 2016-2018.
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Diana U / Ukhina (b. 1988, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) is a cultural researcher, curator, artist, chairwoman of the SYNERGY art studio / Laboratoria CI (2015-2022), co-founder of self-organized collective Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA). Diana holds a masters degree in sociology from American University of Central Asia. Her work primarily concerns the topics of art as a process and experience, inner ecology, feminist perspective, cultural and social memory, art history of Kyrgyzstan, museums as public heritage, methodologies of artistic research. She mainly works with mediums like research exhibitions and expositions, text, multimedia installations, photo, video, DJ-storytelling / DJ-sets. Lives and works in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.