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Who Guards Your Dreams:
A Dialogue with Dariya Temirkhan
READ KZ • 10.01.26 • Nazerke Shynarbek
In September, Tselinny Center for Contemporary Culture opened in Almaty, becoming a significant new addition to Kazakhstan’s art and cultural landscape. The building, originally constructed as a cinema theatre in 1964, underwent multiple reconstructions and has now reopened its doors to visitors.
Upon entering the new center, one immediately notices Dariya Temirkhan’s new video installation, Who Guards Your Dreams?, projected onto the preserved sgraffito by the famous artist Evgeny Sidorkin. Dariya Temirkhan is a Kazakhstani artist working with collage, video art, and sound art.
In the evening, the projection becomes especially vivid, creating the impression of inviting viewers into a calm and welcoming world. The 28-minute work, exhibited as part of the Barsakelmes project, interweaves color and texture, myth and unfolding reality, inviting viewers to reflect on the ecological crises currently taking place.
Nazerke:
Hello, Dariya! Let’s begin our conversation by talking about how the work was created and its structure. In the description of the video installation, you wrote: “Various dragons travel through a water-like space, gathering for an important assembly. This water-like world represents another realm between color and illusion.” I noticed that the imagery first appears on a white background and later shifts to black. Is this transition meant to reflect a movement between color and illusion?
Dariya:
That is right. It’s essentially day and night. I chose white initially to create a visual contrast with the dragons. If you watch the video closely, you’ll see that they move from white into black, as if horsemen spend the whole day traveling through the realm and, by nightfall, witness the gathering of the dragons with their own eyes.
Nazerke:
When you began working on this piece, you started with watercolor. Did you already know then that these paintings would eventually become part of a video? What was your initial concept behind it?
Dariya:
I had been working with collage techniques for my solo exhibition. After the show, I felt a kind of emptiness, as if something inside me had opened into a hole. So I stepped away from collage and began looking for new media. That’s when I returned to watercolor—painting simple still lifes and flowers, essentially going back to the very basics of drawing. I wanted to get to know new materials, but also return to something familiar and foundational. Watercolor requires a certain discipline—you have to learn it properly. It teaches you control. That’s why art schools always begin with watercolor before you move on to oil painting. I needed to bring myself back into shape, to return to painting with care and intention.
Also, my friend Sabina Khorramdel, from Ruyò Journal, gave me a handmade sketchbook shortly before she passed away. That gift carried a certain strength for me. I had already been painting dragons in watercolor, but the sketchbook changed them somehow. The dragons began to feel alive. When I drew them there, it was as if they no longer fit on the page, as if they were moving, trying to break out. That’s when I realized they needed more space. Later, the idea of cutting them out and creating a video emerged.
Nazerke:
When you painted the dragons in watercolor, was it important for them to be drawn “correctly,” or was improvisation more important?
Dariya:
Although they may seem freely drawn, I actually practiced a lot to reach that kind of freedom. With watercolor, every drop that spreads on the paper must work compositionally, and to get there I painted many versions in different colors and formats. Before painting a single dragon in that sketchbook, I spent a long time doing still-life studies and learning how to convey the movement of water. At first, the dragons looked very illustrative, almost like fairy-tale characters. But the dragons you see in the video are different: they resemble water itself. They are movements. They are more than dragons—they are water.
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Nazerke:
I’ve been following your work for a long time. Your earlier pieces were mostly built from layered, complex collages. But in your recent works, there seems to be more transparency rather than layering. Can this be seen as a kind of renewal—a continuation of your solo exhibition in 2023? I read your interview with Vlast.kz about that show. If I summarize it, you spoke a lot about the feeling of hope. Yet now you mentioned that after the exhibition you experienced a sense of emptiness.
Dariya:
Yes, that’s exactly how it was. In that interview, Dmitry Mozarenko asked me what I planned to do after the exhibition and what I would work on next. At the time, I said that the first thing I wanted was to give myself hope. But in reality, once the exhibition ended, I felt as if I had fallen into a hole.
While preparing for the exhibition, I had a clear goal, and that goal carried me through an entire year. There was always something to move toward—making the artworks, writing the texts, finding the space, preparing everything. Even if I felt some kind of darkness inside, I still had direction, momentum. But the day after the exhibition closed, I couldn’t even get out of bed. Everything inside me felt unbearably heavy. The topic I was working with was so painful. I was constantly reading every piece of news and interviews about Qantar. For me, the events of January 2022 lasted the whole year. I felt as if I was living inside that freezing cold for months. And when the exhibition was over, I truly didn’t know what to do next.
So I went to Oral, back to my parents, to my relatives. I usually only go to Oral in the summer, but this time I went in the spring. I realized I hadn’t seen spring there in many years. The spring in Oral—the melting snow, the floodwaters approaching—you can feel it intensely in the city. It’s this powerful natural force, and it affected me deeply. A force you cannot control, yet I felt it could cleanse me.
In Western Kazakhstan, daily life is tied to water, to its presence or absence, and to the floods that come in certain years. Even when the flood doesn’t come, people prepare every spring, building barriers, bringing sandbags, as if water can rise even in the very center of the city. Experiencing that again put me in a different emotional state, and that brought me hope.
Nazerke:
As far as I know, your solo exhibition was originally planned to take place in Oral. Was its main concept connected to the theme of water? After the January events affected your perspective, did you return to the original idea once the exhibition was over, or did it transform entirely?
Dariya:
When Aïda Adilbek and I first planned to hold the exhibition in Oral, my initial idea was to present a collage exhibition. Oral itself feels like a collage: the city carries the history of 20th-century Kazakhstan—churches, merchant houses, Soviet sports complexes, and newly built structures all layered on top of one another. I saw the city as a collage, and I wanted to show my existing and new collages in that specific environment.
But after the January events, everything changed. I realized that the collages I had made before Qantar felt almost naive, and the original idea, which revolved around the city of Oral, no longer carried the same meaning. After those events, I couldn’t stage that exhibition in Oral anymore. It felt as if the meaning behind it had vanished.
Nazerke:
At Tselinny, your poems were presented alongside the video installation, and you referred to them as “keys.” How did you come to poetry? Did the visual language begin to feel insufficient for what you wanted to express? Contemporary art often works within a specific context and aims to convey a message, so sometimes a single visual language can feel limiting.
Dariya:
I actually included my poems in my solo exhibition as well. There were small booklets with my poetry, the curatorial text, and poems by Aijariq Sultanqoja. Poetry has always been close to me. My father loved Kazakh poetry deeply—he used to read to me and make me memorize poems when I was a child. He is the one who opened poetry to me.
But the reason I began writing poetry specifically for my exhibitions is that many curatorial texts in Almaty are either poorly written in Kazakh or poorly translated. They often become formulaic. Sometimes, when I work with curators, I realize their texts have nothing to do with my work. After reading so many texts that were originally written in Russian and then translated awkwardly into Kazakh, I felt the need to speak for myself—in my own language.
We are Kazakh; poetry is something close to us. I think contemporary art can sometimes be better understood through poetry. You can describe abstract things with theoretical language, of course, but as an artist, I want to express myself poetically. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself in curatorial texts—it feels as if I’m being shown through a strange prism.
Nazerke:
Yes, I completely agree with you. Since we live in Kazakhstan, I believe artists should try to communicate their work equally to both Kazakh-speaking and Russian-speaking audiences. I also noticed this democratic approach in your artistic and curatorial practice—for example, in the zine project you created with young poets, Ozen zin. It’s a collection of memories about the Jaiq River and the Caspian Sea, bringing together poems, quotes, and illustrations from eight authors from Western Kazakhstan. The project was supported by the Goethe-Institut in Kazakhstan and the contemporary culture center YEMAA (source: 98mag).
What I found meaningful is that you gathered young artists not necessarily from established art circles, but those who truly care about the ecological state of the Jaiq. And the fact that you chose to present your own work not through a curatorial text, but through poetry, feels very natural. It reflects something deeply rooted in Kazakh culture—our oral storytelling traditions, qissa, dastans, and legends that have survived more vividly than written archives. I feel that continuity in your work.
So choosing the language of poetry—was that a conscious decision for you?
Dariya:
Yes, I think the fact that I am from Oral also played a role. In Oral, poets and writers are held in very high regard. Exhibitions are quite rare, but meetings with poets and writers happen often. Their presence is felt much more strongly there than that of visual artists. This atmosphere has always been familiar and close to me.
The second reason I choose poetry is that metaphorical language allows me to express my thoughts more precisely. If I were to write about the dragons and the myths around them in a literal or academic way, it might be difficult for viewers to connect with it. But through poetry, they can feel it emotionally and arrive at their own understanding of what is happening. And I like that.
Nazerke:
You mentioned that when you began to feel powerless, you started seeing dragons in your dreams. Did you ever try to interpret those dreams? We have a strong tradition of dream interpretation, and psychology also explores this. After you asked the question Who Guards Your Dreams?, how important was it for you to interpret those dreams in a positive way?
Dariya:
I really did see dragons often in my dreams, and they gave me strength. It felt as if they were protecting me. At a time when I felt hollow inside, that was exactly the feeling I needed. Because those dreams gave me hope, I wanted to share that feeling with others.
While searching for answers, I began reading myths, including those connected to Barsakelmes. But in many of those stories, dragons are portrayed as evil—and I don’t believe that. The dragons I saw in my dreams were protectors. I wanted to show them as guardians of water. In Kazakh culture, we have the word aidaһar, but there are not many widely known myths about them. And from what I’ve come to understand, dragons are spirits and guardians of water—fierce at times. They show anger because people can be careless with water, almost as if the dragons punish us for that.
But at the same time, because they protect water, they need that forcefulness. Sometimes the power that protects you does not appear gentle—but that is precisely how it protects.
Nazerke:
Yes, the idea that the force protecting you may need to be uncompromising is really interesting—I agree with that. And as you mentioned, the process of creating this work seems to have had a meditative, therapeutic, even healing effect for you?
Dariya:
Yes, it truly did. I used to think about composition and concept, of course, but at that time I didn’t consider myself a “complete” artist. I was thinking only within the frame of this one work. But after making it, even the sketches from my childhood—the drawings, the collages I created later—all suddenly began to make sense. They felt like steps on a path I was meant to take. This video clarified my direction and my thoughts. It helped me understand where I am going, what I am doing, and what kind of artist I want to become.
So when I saw dragons in my dreams, it felt as if they were letting me ride on their backs. And while creating this work, I had the same feeling—as though I were the messenger of the dragon, and I understood where I needed to fly. This work is very personal and very beautiful for me, and it took care of me. But it reached me through a difficult path.
Nazerke:
In this work, you mentioned that all the dragons are gathering for a council. Listening to you, I realized something: everything you’ve done up to this point—your interest in poetry, your return to watercolor, the transformation of those works into collages, then into video, and even incorporating the sounds of the Jaiq River—feels like you’ve gathered your different facets, your creative explorations, into your own kind of council. It all came together beautifully and very successfully.
After completing this work, did you feel any emptiness, or is there hope?
Dariya:
No, after completing this piece—and I actually finished it about a year ago—I felt even more strength. The waters of Western Kazakhstan, and the fact that they are slowly disappearing, began to concern me even more deeply. Before, I was a little afraid of approaching this topic, because I wasn’t sure how confidently I could speak about it in my own voice. But now it feels essential to talk about it.
For example, the Barsakelmes project itself is about the disappearing Aral Sea. It vanished completely. I don’t want a similar project to appear 30 years from now about the Caspian Sea or Lake Balkhash—a project mourning something already lost. I don’t want to document disappearance only after it has happened. So now, I am archiving my current feelings. Through my work, I am building an archive of the Jaiq.
Because even when we think about the Aral, it has become difficult to imagine what it once was. Was such a sea really there? For me, even that is now hard to picture.
Nazerke:
In this context, I’d like to ask you about art activism. It seems that the image of the artist shaped in the 20th century—the enigmatic, distant figure like Picasso or Dalí—is no longer relevant. In fact, that image has almost become a caricature today. Now, it feels like an artist needs to be closer to people. Of course, every artist chooses for themselves what kind of artist they want to be.
But considering the current economic and political conditions, we can clearly see that many contemporary artists strive to be more present among the public and to address issues happening in society through their work.
There is so much discussion around art activism now. People outside the art world, and artists themselves, often ask: To what extent can art actually help resolve these issues? Does it really have any impact? And there is criticism from the outside as well.
What is your perspective on this?
Dariya:
Art does not actually solve these problems. If we are talking about the depletion or disappearance of water, that is something that must be addressed on a governmental level first. One person, one artist, cannot fix that. But that doesn’t mean we should remain silent. The power of art lies in drawing attention to these issues. And if art manages to do that—that is significant.
Very often, the state keeps many problems quiet or softens them in official news. But artists, whether speaking from their own position or on behalf of the people, should say: we do not agree.
This voice becomes an archive. A record.
Future generations will look at our works and see clearly that we responded, that we resisted, that we cared.
Nazerke:
There is a criticism that when artists address social issues and express them through art, these issues inevitably undergo a certain aestheticization. Referring to the texts of art theorist Boris Groys, some argue that artists call on the public to pay attention to today’s crises, but because this is not direct protest or concrete action, and because art follows its own canons and expectations, the final result becomes aestheticized.
My next question is about the relationship between form and content in your practice.
When you try to convey a message through form, do you encounter inner criticism or doubt? For example, when addressing ecological issues, if a conflict arises between form and content, how do you resolve it?
Is form more important to you, or content?
Dariya:
Speaking about content, I understand the criticism regarding aestheticization. But to avoid falling into that trap, I speak only on my own behalf. For example, even when addressing the events of Qantar, I speak solely as a citizen of Kazakhstan. The same applies when I speak about ecological issues or disappearing water. I relate to these topics personally because, as a citizen, I sometimes feel like a fish that cannot swim freely.
Because of this, when I speak from my own position, the form of my work also has the right to be personal. Some artists, especially from the older generation, speak on behalf of the people, and they are ready to carry that responsibility. But I am not. My form is closer to abstraction compared to theirs.
For instance, if we compare the works about Qantar by Saule Suleimenova, Askhat Akhmediyarov, and myself, they are entirely different. They are not afraid to show things directly, to speak on behalf of all the citizens. But I hesitate to speak on behalf of everyone, and I feel I do not have that right.
Nazerke:
In the past, I used to think that when addressing an issue through art, speaking indirectly or metaphorically would never fully reveal its meaning, that perhaps a more direct and firm language was necessary. But your perspective gave me a new way to think about it. There is truth in what you’re saying: each person has to choose the language and form they can handle, depending on the level of responsibility they feel.
Dariya:
We need to make that choice. If we look back at history, during the Soviet era, becoming an artist required many years of training. And if one passed through that entire process, the Party assigned themes. You had to represent them directly; there was no room for metaphorical expression.
But since I was born in independent Kazakhstan, I feel that I have the right to speak through metaphor and suggestion. I do not want to speak on behalf of the entire country, because then I feel I would be presenting myself as something I am not. However, I do want to be known, for example, as an artist from Western Kazakhstan. And if, later on, art historians look back and say: this is something characteristic of artists from Western Kazakhstan—in their themes or sensibilities—that would be wonderful.
But even so, I am not yet ready to say that I speak for all of Oral or for all of Kazakhstan. At least, not now.
Nazerke:
In today’s fast-changing information age, it has almost become a requirement for everyone to have an opinion on public issues and to express it immediately. As a result, we see more and more situations where urgent social problems are used merely as informational triggers—as a way to gain attention or visibility.
Against this backdrop, the sincere voice of thoughtful artists, who have always been ahead of their time, becomes especially important. Their ability to speak in a language that is truly their own, and most importantly, to speak truthfully, resisting falsehood, feels deeply necessary today.
Through the translucent, fluid movements of the dragons, the artist reveals a realm that exists between dream and reality. The sensations of inner emptiness, fear, or an awakening sense of hope seem to reside within this liminal space. And the dragons act as protectors of the human being’s vulnerable, fragile nature. They open the eyes of the one who wakes from such a dream to the experiences unfolding in their waking life.
Interviewer: Nazerke Shynarbek
Translation: Dariya Temirkhan