About us | Steppe Space EN

about us

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Steppe Space is a place of Central Asian contemporary art and culture.

By launching the project from Kazakhstan, we bring together local artistic and research communities here in five spaces for discussion, study, interaction and creation.
Dala — hybrid exhibition space
Art Collider — school of art and science
Sözen — space of word, text and language
Keskın — space of visual communication
Murağat — archive of culture and art

We, as public and cultural practitioners from the Artcom Platform community, create Steppe Space with care for the past and future of our region. We strive to form a sustainable ecosystem for public knowledge production and collective practice.

For us, Steppe is more than a geographical plane, it is an intercommunal space for theorising the phenomena, temporalities and contexts of the region.

As a continuation of intergenerational cultural processes and technologies in the region, Steppe Space is for us an experience of co-dreaming and transformation in the Central Asian infrastructure of nomads and cities.

our team

Initiator

Interdependent curator, researcher, decolonial activist, initiator of Artcom Platform, daughter of Steppe from Argyn and Zhagalbayly tribes.

Director

Artist, born in 1997 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Studied Finance at the International IT University and Free Arts and Sciences at St. Petersburg State University. Participant of art collectives MATA and DAVRA.

Art director of Artcom Platform

Artist and designer. Graduate of Parsons School of Design. Creator of the eco-brand "5:45 AM".

Mentor's office

(Ashgabat, 1986) is an Environment, Sustainable Development and Society Strategist at Artcom Platform with 20 years of expertise in the civil society sector in Central Asia. Co-founder of FemAgora, a regional feminist organization. She studies climate and planetary boundaries at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Keeps a diary about Turkmenistan and Central Asian everyday life at @s.jumayewa.

Architect, computational architect (current: MA University Innsbruck), researcher, urban planner.

aidaissakhankyzy.com

(Osh, 1984) - artist, performer, member of Bishkek-based group 705. Works at the intersection of contemporary art and theater. Since 2005, a member of the group 705 (Bishkek). In 2011 in the Central Asian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale presented the art project "L'Innomable" based on playwrights such as Beckett and Ionesco. From 2014-2020, co-organizer of the annual First April competition. Participant of various contemporary art exhibitions. Works with texts, animation and comics.

Poet, translator, born in 1985. Participant of the literary festivals Polyphony and Convocation in Kazakhstan (2013-2014), Dzejas Dienas and Dzejnieka asinis festivals in Riga (2015-2016), winner of the Great Almaty Slam 2017. Initiator of Post Poetry readings in Astana (2011-2015), and Forty-sixth Word readings in Almaty (2017-2018). Participant of the bULt working group. Co-author of the spoken-word project "Balkhash Dreaming". Publications in the magazines Polutona, textonly, Liteggatura, Soloneba, Esquire, Satori, Satenai.

Poet, translator. Was born in 1995 in Ile-Kazakh region in Mungulkure district in Xinjiang. Published in the magazines Tamyr, Daktil, Sygma, Angime. Co-author of Friedrich Schegirtke. Translated into Kazakh a collection of articles by M. Tlostanova "Decoloniality of Being, Knowledge and Sensation". Author of the poem Nursultan. Currently lives in Almaty.

Identity: Olesya Kotova, Aida Isakhankyzy, Aigerim Kapar, Medina Bazargali, Lyazzat Khanim, Dana Iskakova.

Logo animation: Aliya Nur and Lyazzat Khanim.

Video animation: Lyazzat Khanim.

Music: Mergen.

we are grateful and thankful to

To our families, partners and friends, community and partners of Artcom Platform for their continuous care and contribution to the formation of our team and the launch of the project and its spaces.

To Kusto Help Foundation represented by Yerkin Tatishev for trust and financial support for the creation of Steppe Space and the holding of Steppe Space: Art Collider 2021.

To the teams of Maint, CodeTau and ALA Creative Agency for facilitating the project development.