The workshop explores taste as a form of identity, memory, and cultural history. Beginning with sensory perception — and with the question of why a familiar food such as qurt can evoke radically different feelings and memories — the discussion will trace how the tastes of Kazakhstan have been shaped by landscape and regional diversity, the Silk Road, colonization, famine, war, migration, and independence.

Through conversation and shared examples, participants will consider what makes a taste feel “ours,” whether a common culinary language can unite Kazakhstan, and how globalization continues to transform the contemporary dastarkhan.

Participants are invited to bring three small favorite snacks or food items that remind them of home, family, or everyday life. Together, we will explore their origins and stories, and discuss how food, cultural background, and personal habits shape our surroundings and our sense of home, especially when living abroad.

Balnura Nusipova is an Almaty-based artist working across photography, video, and installation. Her practice engages with memory, migration, decoloniality, and social transformation, exploring how memory manifests in everyday life through gestures, objects, family histories, and collective habits. Her works often become spaces where personal experience intersects with collective memory, allowing the past to continue speaking through the present. Balnura is one of the artists featured in Ümit Playground: Memory Games at Tselinny.

Marsel Ganeyev (also known as “Tatar prince”), PhD, researcher, queer and language activist. His work explores the intersection of language and queer identity.

Venue: Atelier

Time: 2:00 PM

Language: Russian

Admission: Free entry

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