Formations: In Conversation With Aziza Kadyri and Francesca Stocco

Join Bonington Gallery for a free online conversation event between multidisciplinary artist Aziza Kadyri, and Francesca Stocco, PhD researcher of textile art at Nottingham Trent University.

The talk will explore Aziza’s contemporary art practice, which blends the Central Asian tradition of Suzani embroidery with AI technology. Combining physical stitching with digital tools, she reformulates Suzani motifs and infuses them with personal and current socio-political narratives.

Together, the speakers will discuss the evolving meaning of textile craft in Aziza’s practice and in the context of Uzbekistan’s ongoing cultural transformation.

Aziza, who represented Uzbekistan at the 2024 Venice Art Biennial alongside the Qizlar collective and Suzani master Madina Kasimbaeva, will share insights on migration, identity, and belonging from their exhibition. Her work challenges Eurocentric craft-fine art boundaries and notions of single authorship in artistic creation.

Watch the live stream via YouTube.

This event is part of Formations, Bonington Gallery’s ongoing events programme that is delivered in partnership with the Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group.