Artist Gulnur Mukazhanova connects Kazakh heritage to global art
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
Gulnur Mukazhanova, a Kazakh artist based in Berlin, displayed her Bosağa textile series at Frieze London 2026, an international contemporary art fair.
The artist created the series starting in 2021 to examine how textiles reflect cultural history and movement. Mukazhanova used felt, a material central to nomadic life in Central Asia and traditionally used for yurts, and combined it with fabrics she collected during her travels across Asia.
She connected this heritage to a wider history by researching 14th-century Italian art and the carpets that moved between Asia and Europe on the Silk Road. Mukazhanova deliberately pinned the fabric pieces together instead of permanently attaching them, suggesting the temporary nature of place and culture. The title “Bosağa” means “threshold” in Kazakh and other Turkic languages, representing a passage between places and states of being.
