research & Publications
At its broadest level my research looks at contemporary art within the political landscape of post-Soviet Central Asia and how it operates as a platform for agency and change.
"Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him."
- Chinua Achebe
education
PhD Art History & Archaeology
SOAS University of London / London
2015 – 2022
Thesis: Contesting Convention: Contemporary Art within the Political Landscape of Post-Soviet Central Asia
MA Contemporary Art
Sotheby’s Institute of Art / London
2011 – 2013
Thesis: Performing in the Interstice of Mutating Regimes: Erbossyn Meldibekov and the Rhetoric of Representation
BFA with an Emphasis in Art History, Theory & Criticism
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago / Chicago
2004 – 2007
Papers
Contesting Convention: Agency in Dushanbe’s Contemporary Art Scene’. Aliya de Tiesenhausen (ed). The Social Role of Art and Culture in Central Asia, Routledge, 2022.
‘Contesting Convention: Agency in Dushanbe’s Contemporary Art Scene’. Central Asian Survey, 22 January 2021.
‘Contesting Convention? The case of contemporary art from Tajikistan.’ The Seventh Annual Doctoral Research Workshop on Central Asia | Art and Culture – Actors or Representatives? Senate House, London (26 Jan 2019).
‘Post-Soviet migration in Central Asia through the lens of contemporary art’ Nomadic Art Camp 2017: Stocktaking for Broader Promotion of Sustainable Management of Mountain Resources and Landscapes Vol. 2017 (2018): 46-48.
‘Mankurtism, Monuments and Marketing: Identity and Power in post-Soviet Contemporary Art of Central Asia.’ The SOAS Journal of Postgraduate Research Vol.9 (2015-16): 47-64.
photography
David Montgomery (ed). Central Asia in Context: A Thematic Introduction to the Region, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022. [My fieldwork photographs from Central Asia illustrate the book.]
I participated in the Central Eurasian Studies Society's (CESS) first-ever photo contest under the title: “The Researcher and His/Her Fieldwork in Central Eurasia“. Scholars and journalists present photos that reflect on the relationship between the researcher and the object of research and illuminate the different faces of fieldwork: https://voicesoncentralasia.org/the-researcher-and-his-her-fieldwork-in-central-eurasia-photo-gallery/
I was a CAPture Photo Contest Winner for images of 'Central Asia in Focus': https://centralasiaprogram.org/capture-photo-contest-central-asia-in-focus
conferences
The Seventh Annual Doctoral Research Workshop on Central Asia | Art and Culture – Actors or Representatives? Senate House, London (26 Jan 2019)