Zhameli Khairli

Zhameli Khairli (she/her) is a Vienna-based art historian, cultural worker, and Managing Director of D—Arts, a project office for diversity. Her work focuses on creating conditions for marginalized communities to articulate their own perspectives within cultural contexts, and on developing formats that connect lived realities with structural change.
In Vienna, she has collaborated with organizations such as the online art platform eSeL.at, Gewächshaus Network for filmmakers of color, Perilla—Association for the Promotion and Visibility of the Asian Diaspora in Austria, and the Office for Anti-Racism at the University of Vienna. Her work includes coordinating curatorial programs, building communities, and developing participatory formats grounded in the needs of those involved.
Trained in international relations and art history, she previously spent nearly a decade in Qazaqstan’s state service before turning toward cultural research and curatorial practice. Her research explores how cultural heritage in Central Asia is shaped by power, memory, and processes of erasure, with a focus on contemporary art, Islamic visual cultures, and post-Soviet contexts. She is currently part of the research project Anthropogenic Environments in the Future Tense at the University of Vienna.