This five-day seminar, led by researcher Almira Tabaeva, introduces participants to arts-based research and decolonial feminist theory as complementary ways of producing knowledge about gender, memory, and lived experience in Central Asia. The seminar asks a question: what counts as knowledge, and whose knowledge counts?

Across the week, participants move from foundational questions about knowledge and evidence, through the practice of arts-based methods such as visual, body-mapping, and object-based research, into close engagement with decolonial and feminist scholarship. This includes Tabaeva's own Suzani Feminism framework, which reads embroidery, family archives, and intergenerational memory as sites of feminist knowledge production. The program includes a hands-on workshop and roundtable, where participants apply what they've explored to their own research, producing a collective zine as a shared outcome of the week.

Almira Tabaeva is a PhD candidate in Education at Nazarbayev University and a Research Assistant Professor at Almaty Management University. Her current research interests include gender and education, research ethics, and decolonial and arts-based research methodologies in Central Asia. Her work explores how lived experience, cultural memory, and creative practices can contribute to more locally grounded and ethically responsive knowledge production.

Schedule

17 August (Day 1): 11:00–13:00

18 August (Day 2): 11:00–13:00

19 August (Day 3): 11:00–13:00

22 August (Day 4): 14:00–16:30

23 August (Day 5): 14:00–16:30

Most course readings will be provided in English, while seminar discussions and key concepts will be introduced and explored in Russian and Kazakh to ensure accessibility for participants.

Who is it for?

The seminar is intended for students, early-career researchers, educators, cultural practitioners, and anyone interested in arts-based methodologies, decolonial and feminist theory, memory studies, and knowledge production in the Central Asian context.

Participation

Participation is free of charge. Places are limited.

To apply, please complete the application form on our website by 10 August.

If you have any questions, please contact us at learning@tselinny.org

Selected participants will be notified shortly after the application deadline and will receive the seminar readings together with practical information in advance of the first session.

All seminar sessions will take place at Atelier, Tselinny’s educational space (59 Masanchi Street, Almaty).

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