Co-written by sima omarkulova and Gulnar Nauryzbai, illustrated by Katya Bolatova. An illustrated guide to Almaty’s history, architecture and everyday life, published in 2023.
Written in co-authorship this book tells the story of Almaty, my home town, by embracing its wonderful history.
A special place in my heart is taken by the cinema (rent free <3)
Together with my friends, we created a movie calendar with 366 movies for each day of the year, each selected for a specific occasion. I mostly added films created by women filmmakers under the hashtag #womenmakefilm.
24FEMMESPERSECOND - is an independent cinema project dedicated to women filmmakers and the female gaze in film history. The project includes a self-published zine series with three issues released: issue 1 celebrates female friendship, the second issue focuses on coming-of-age stories directed by women, and the third on family portraits. The next issues, as well as the project itself, are on hold for now.
Alongside the publication, I curate an offline movie club where we discuss films by women directors. The project creates a space for collective viewing, reflection, and conversation around women’s voices in film.
Discussing "Daisies" by Vera Chytilova Our first gathering was dedicated to Agnes Varda <3 We watched one of the most feminist works she created "One Sings, the Other Doesn't".The introductory lecture to the movie club <3 Why do we watch movies created by female filmmakers?
Cannes film festival
I first visited the festival in 2023 under the "3 Jours à Cannes" program.
In 2024, received festival accreditation as an industry professional. It's funny how during my last visit, I managed to give an interview to the Letterboxd team, where besides of talking about movies, I said hi to my doggo!
2024. Salle Debussy. Before Ariane Labed's debut feature "September says".2024. Letterboxd team gifted me this sticker pack after I gave them an interview <32023. Happy to be in Cannes for the first time!
Workshops
In the past did some workshop curation. Gathering people who love crafting, as we do, to do something with our hands and share stories was part of the practice in TARTPA.
felting workshop remembering the practices of our ancestors and trying to recreate the way they worked with felt. we created tiny art-works/carpets so that we could hang them on the wall just like our grannies did.collage workshop remembering our ancestors and particularly grandmothers while creating a collage work dedicated to themcollage workshop dedicated to our ancestorsfelting workshop with elder people, making naive pieces of artfelting workshop with young adults, re-learning the work our kazakh grannies did on a daily basis
Film photography projects
Alongside organising creative workshops and fundraising art events, I co-initiated with friends a film photography project dedicated to dogs: visited participants in their homes and photographed them on 35mm film. Each session included a short interview about their bond and daily life. The project raised 420,000 KZT for local dog shelters through merch and art-based fundraising activities. A short behind-the-scenes video from the project can be viewed here.
Film photography
Sometimes I shoot on 35mm film. My main focus is the poetry of everyday things.
