A history in acts and gestures: Performance, Central Asia and the Caucasus — Almaty Museum of Arts and Tate Modern presented a joint programme
This collaboration marks the museum’s first step on the international stage and underscores its commitment to dialogue and knowledge exchange between Central Asia and the world.
A history in acts and gestures: Performance, Central Asia and the Caucasus — Almaty Museum of Arts and Tate Modern presented a joint programme
Almaty Museum of Arts has opened a series of international collaborations with its first joint project with Tate Modern (London). A history in acts and gestures: Performance, Central Asia and the Caucasus, held on 3–4 October 2025 at the Almaty Museum of Arts, was a two-day programme of panels and performances centring bodily knowledge in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Taking gestures, acts, sounds and movements across the region as a starting point, the programme asked how the performative both responds to shifting socio-political structures and shapes new forms of being. The moving, sounding, performing body, situated at an intersection with the world, animated and sensed relations with it — prompting questions such as: What forms of memory, resilience and knowledge move through the body? What does attending to the body stir within existing historical and art-historical narratives? What forms of witnessing and storytelling emerge through performance’s liveness, with its impermanence and immateriality?
Through contributions by artists, researchers, curators and writers in multiple formats, A history in acts and gestures imagined expanded histories and genealogies of the performative in the region, exploring how subjectivity, embodiment and collective existence might be understood or reshaped, otherwise.
“By bringing together artists and researchers from these regions, the project created a space where their voices could be heard in all their depth and complexity. Scholarly thinking intertwined with new performances created specifically for the programme,” said Inga Lāce, Chief Curator of the Almaty Museum of Arts.
The programme combined research presentations and live performances — from musical improvisations to pieces at the intersection of aitys (a traditional Kazakh form of oral poetic improvisation) and contemporary practices such as live coding, as well as bodily rituals inspired by the tradition of jyrau (Kazakh folk poet-singers, guardians of oral memory and spiritual guides). The events explored the ways in which memory, language, and movement intersect to form a field where temporal and social dimensions — past and present, individual and collective — overlap.
“The collaboration between Tate’s Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational and the Almaty Museum of Arts for this research event focused on bodily knowledge and bodily memory across Central Asia and the Caucasus, asking how different stories and histories emerge when we focus on the body. It was a way toward asking bigger socio-historical questions, such as those rooted in relationship to land and in modes of knowledge that were resiliently kept despite waves of erasure,” noted Dina Akhmadeeva, Curator at Tate Modern.
This collaboration marks the museum’s first step on the international stage and underscores its commitment to dialogue and knowledge exchange between Central Asia and the world.
“The partnership considered the emergence of performance art, sound practices and other performative forms across the Caucasus and Central Asia — not only as outgrowths of the 1980s–1990s, but also as practices deeply interwoven with everyday ritual, with aitys, aqyns, jyrau and poetic traditions, and with responses to social change,” added Inga Lāce.
“Tate is committed to research that challenges and revises dominant art histories through exchange of ideas, and it was uniquely special to develop this research event in Kazakhstan, in a situated way and in close and long-term conversation with artists, researchers, writers and curators from Central Asia and the Caucasus. This brought a depth of reflection to the two days of programme, which included presentations, discussions and artists’ performances, as well as transnational connections between participants’ perspectives,” emphasized Dina Akhmadeeva.
Participants included: Ruben Arevshatyan, Andrius Arutiunian, Ännäs Bağdat, Medina Bazarğali, Uta Bekaia, Syrlybek Bekbotaev, Anuar Duisenbinov, Leah Feldman, Ana Gzirishvili, Angela Harutyunyan, Aigerim Kapar, Antonina van Lier & Aigerim Ospan (Artcom Platform), Gulnara Kasmalieva, Muratbek Djumaliev, Ermek Kazmuhambet, Diana Kudaibergen; Kyzyl Tractor (Said Atabekov, Smail Bayaliev, Arystanbek Shalbayev), Lovozero, Jamilya Nurkalieva, Irena Popiashvili, Elena Razlogova, SAMRATTAMA, Vija Skangale, Yuliya Sorokina, Zere.
The programme was co-convened by Dina Akhmadeeva (Tate Modern), Leah Feldman (University of Chicago) and Inga Lāce (Almaty Museum of Arts).
Organised by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in partnership with Hyundai Motor, in collaboration with the Almaty Museum of Arts.
Upcoming projects
AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions — a joint research initiative focused on women artists represented in the Almaty Museum of Arts collection, including Aisha Galymbayeva and Almagul Menlibayeva. The programme will feature a roundtable and workshop on 29 October in Almaty with AWARE representatives alongside Kazakhstani researchers and artists, discussing the role of women in the art history of Central Asia.
Almaty Museum of Arts x NYU Research Project (supported by the Getty Foundation, Los Angeles) — launching in November 2025, this collaboration will advance research, academic exchange and dialogue around Central Asian art history. The first international seminar will take place 10–15 November 2025 at the Almaty Museum of Arts, with further convenings planned for Bishkek (2026) and London (2027), building a new platform for international scholarly collaboration.
Notes to Editors
The Almaty Museum of Arts is a new private museum of contemporary art founded by collector and philanthropist Nurlan Smagulov. It opened in autumn 2025. The museum’s mission is to support and research the processes of contemporary art in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. At the core of the museum is Smagulov's collection. Accumulated over the past three decades, it features over 700 works from Kazakhstan and Central Asia, alongside works by leading international artists, making it one of the largest private collections of its kind in the region.
The 10,060 m² building was designed by the British architectural firm Chapman Taylor, a global leader in architecture, urban design, and interiors. Museum planning was overseen by the international consultancy Lord Cultural Resources, whose portfolio includes the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Centre Pompidou, and the Louvre in Paris. Engineering solutions were developed by the international company Buro Happold, known for its work on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the British Museum in London, and LACMA in Los Angeles.
The museum’s visual identity contrasts the mountain landscape with the modern city. The architectural concept is based on two L-shaped volumes: one clad in Jurassic limestone, symbolizing the power of nature, and the other covered in aluminum panels, reflecting the energy of the contemporary city.
Visitor Information • Open daily 11 am – 8 pm (last entry 7 pm), closed Mondays. • Standard ticket: 2,000 KZT; discounted ticket: 500 KZT. Free admission available for several visitor categories. Full details about ticket prices and guided tours are available on the museum’s official website.