Aziza Kadyri

Aziza Kadyri (b. 1994) is a London-based Uzbek visual artist working across textiles, installation, performance, sculpture, and creative technologies. She is the co-founder of Qizlar, a grassroots collective of artists and activists from Uzbekistan and its diaspora, rooted in intersectionality and social change. 

Kadyri’s practice examines themes of social invisibility, displacement, decolonisation, and identity formation, particularly for women in Central Asia and its diaspora. Using textiles and costume, she reimagines cultural heritage and traditional narratives through technological tools such as AI, machine learning and extended reality, weaving together speculative stories that preserve memory, resist erasure, and contribute to alternative mythmaking. Central to her work is a participatory approach that engages local communities and artisans, and situates her within wider conversations on decolonial aesthetics and feminist technology.

Aziza represented Uzbekistan at the 60th Venice Biennale of Art in  2024 with the project Don’t Miss the Cue. She is a finalist of CIRCA Prize 2025 and a Gold medallist at the 18th International Triennial of Textile. 

Her recent exhibitions include Recipes for Broken Hearts, Bukhara Biennial, Uzbekistan; Re-Constellations, 5th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, Zhejiang Art Museum, China; Deconstruction/Reconstruction, 18th International Triennial of Textile, Central Museum of Textiles, Łódź, Poland; Subject to Change, Gazelli Art House, London, UK; and Spectral Drift, Audra Festival, National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum, Lithuania. Her work has also been shown at Fondazione Elpis (Milan), KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art (Berlin), Zilberman Gallery (Berlin), Kunstraum Bethanien (Berlin), Prague Quadrennial of Performance (Prague), Pushkin House (London), etc. Kadyri is currently a Creative Technologies Fellow and resident at Somerset House, London, where she will open her solo exhibition Play Nice in November 2025. Other forthcoming projects include the group show Making Kin at the Humboldt Forum, Berlin; a residency at The Watermill Center, New York, US; and new institutional commissions with CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile), Hong Kong, among others.