Guzel Zakir is a Kazakhstani visual artist of Uyghur descent.

Guzel Zakir is a Kazakhstan-based visual artist of Uyghur descent, living and working in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Working across textiles, painting, video, and installation, she explores identity, collective memory, migration, and the female voice within post-Soviet and patriarchal contexts. Her practice builds a dialogue between past and present through research into Central Asian women’s rituals and Uyghur cultural heritage, including writing traditions and embodied forms of transmission. Zakir uses natural, often unprimed linen and textile objects as carriers of memory—materials that echo nomadic histories and women’s everyday “infrastructures” of care. A recurring motif in her work is the Red Woman, first introduced in 2022 and inspired by the crimson frescoes of Ming Oi (Caves of a Thousand Buddhas) in Turfan, Xinjiang. This figure became a manifesto of self-acceptance and inner decolonization: a symbol of strength, dignity, and the right to one’s identity. Through exhibitions, research-based projects, and collaborations, Guzel Zakir challenges colonial stereotypes and creates spaces where cultural resilience, trauma, and healing can coexist. She is available for exhibitions, commissions, public talks, workshops, and collaborative projects.