Did you ever wonder how someone can feel a stranger in the country their family has lived for generations? I was born with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, in Kazakhstan, a country where Russian influence is really strong. I learned early on to hide parts of myself and conform to a society rejecting me. I realised that I have been living according to standards shaped by colonialism and ableism. I am now asking: Who am I as a person and an artist? In what ways is my artistic identity colonised? How can I deconstruct myself and understand the intricate relationship between Central Asian colonisation, education and my artistic expression? At Sibelius Academy, my artistic research is motivated by my experience of exclusion and invisibility as a disabled artist, compounded by the effects of colonialism on Kazakhstan. The main research question: how can decolonising myself impact the development of my own artistic identity and my perception of Kazakh music? To answer this question, I will use in my artistic research the methods of autoethnography, semi-structured interviews with artists and scholars, and the innovative use of dialogical improvisation to create a transcultural dialogue through music. This will result in two concerts, an LP recording, and the publication of two peer-reviewed articles. The first concert will strip away colonial influences to explore what my music might sound like without the pressures of Westernisation. The second one will reflect the outcomes of my decolonisation process. The LP will be a collaborative exploration with artists from colonised backgrounds, investigating how their journeys of decolonisation shape their artistic practices. The two peer-reviewed articles will reflect the process and outcomes of the concerts and LP. This research will fill the gap in the understudied field of artistic decolonisation in Central Asia while contributing to a broader conversation on the intersections of identity, culture, and colonialism.

2025