Sophia Al-Maria, Manal AlDowayan, Aziza Kadyri, Raya Kassisieh, Almagul Menlibayeva and Elnara Nasirli present works on inherited forms that persist through change, from Central Asian suzani embroidery passed through generative AI to Bedouin Sadu weaving in contemporary sculpture.
In Conversations with AI (III) (2026), Aziza Kadyri moves patterns from Central Asian suzani embroidery back and forth between her own hand and generative AI models. Each pass generates mistranslations and new readings while retaining the patterns’ origins. Shown alongside handmade suzani embroideries, the work raises questions of authorship and cultural memory as an inherited visual language moves between human and machine.
Auronda Scalera and Dr. Alfredo Cramerotti curated the exhibition, taking its title from Gilles Deleuze’s writing on the fold.
"The past is not elsewhere, it is here, folded into the present, waiting in a sculpture, a carpet, a name, a city's ruins, to be unfolded again. That is exactly what we found tracing these six practices: artists working from different cities and different materials, arriving independently at the same pressure point. A convergence like that is rarely about the artists alone. It says something about the condition each was responding to, one neither could see from inside their own practice."
Almagul Menlibayeva’s The Map of Nomadizing Reimaginings: An Evolving Cyber Textile Map, Iteration 04 (2026) combines hand-sewn recycled fabric with digital print; each iteration incorporates material from the previous one. Manal AlDowayan’s Watch Before You Fall (2023) draws on Sadu weaving, a practice historically sustained by Bedouin women. In Ghost Bark (2026), Elnara Nasirli traces the transformation of caoutchouc from the rubber tree into latex and metallic film. Raya Kassisieh combines goat hair, sheep’s wool and steel in Thorn Throne (2025), while Sophia Al-Maria presents two new paintings, Muškilat and Šugul (2026), developed from research first presented through HiLux.
The exhibition remains on view throughout Baku International Arts Festival and Baku Art Weekend 2026.
