Multidisciplinary artist Aziza Kadyri presents an exhibition of newly commissioned work developed as part of the 12-month Creative Technologies Fellowship in partnership with UAL Creative Computing Institute.

Kadyri’s immersive, interactive exhibition for G31 continues her ongoing worldbuilding series. The installation explores the origins of the artist’s alter ego—a trickster figure inspired by Central Asian and Middle Eastern oral traditions and rooted in her Uzbek identity. This shapeshifting, adaptive trickster, invisible in the installation itself, represents a form of cultural survival—Kadyri’s attempt to reinterpret her heritage for digital and diasporic contexts. The title Play Nice is twofold, recalling the artist’s shifting sense of belonging growing up between Russia, China, Uzbekistan and the UK whilst referencing the mischievous nature of her persona.

Play Nice invites viewers into the artist’s fragmented childhood memories of growing up as an immigrant in early-2000s Moscow. The work intertwines sound, scenography, and tactile interventions. Merging Uzbek craft with AI, Kadyri explores new cultural narratives for a digital age, reframing questions of belonging, adaptation, and identity through a theatrical lens.

Commissioned by Somerset House Studios in collaboration with UAL Creative Computing Institute.

Photography by Tim Bowditch