Photographer #381: Almagul Menlibayeva

Almagul Menlibayeva, 1969, Kazakhstan, is a fine-art photographer and video artist who works and lives in Berlin and Kazakhstan. She studied at the Academy of Art and Theatre in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her photography is a mixture of nomadic aesthetic of post-Soviet and contemporary Kazakhstan. In her portfolio we find portraits staged in the vast steppes and mountains between the Caspian Sea, Baikonur and Altai in her home country. The romantic and melancholic images deal with the heritage of the soviet era and the transformation of their country. She states; "I use specific ways of expression... to investigate my personal archaic atavism as a certain mystical anthropomorphism. I explore the nature of a specific... shared cultural psychic experience, which manifests itself as a specific thought-form among the people(s) of the ancient, arid and dusty steppes." Her photography is about memory and reality, "raising metaphysical questions such as Who am I? and Where shall I go?" Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world. The following images come from various series within her portfolio.

Website: www.almagulmenlibayeva.com