Nomadic Existence: Queer Presence and Precarious Refuges
April – May 2026
Ju Bavyka is a writer and visual artist from Kazakhstan of Tatar, German, Ukrainian and Russian inheritance, now based in Sydney, Australia. During their CoMuse Fellowship, they are researching the Central Asian collection of the Ethnologisches Museum with curiosity about how objects were collected, categorised, and valued – and what a queer approach to these histories might reveal.
They are particularly interested in how colonial collecting practices shaped ideas of authenticity and value, and in objects that complicate these categories: carpets that are hard to identify, ritual objects that take up museum shelf space, and yurts in collection facilities that may never be displayed.
The collection research takes place in the context of the project Nomadic Existence: Queer Presence and Precarious Refuges, which also engages with yurts and the desire to live nomadically and without settling. The vibrant Central and North Asian queer community living in Berlin is part of the inspiration for this fellowship. Its members challenge exclusion and invent new forms of living, reappropriating traditional symbols and crafts.
"I'm interested in objects that are hard to identify, that don't fit established categories, that take up space without clear value. These objects become a way of thinking about queer lives – how we live with estrangement from 'original' or 'traditional' identity. I remember someone saying queers are difficult commodities to navigate."
— Ju Bavyka
Ju Bavyka is a writer and visual artist born in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, and living on Gadigal Land in Sydney, Australia. Their work explores migration, queerness, labour, and structural exclusion. Bavyka is the 2025 recipient of the Peter Blazey Fellowship and a 2026 CoMuse Fellow at the Humboldt Forum, Berlin. They are currently working on their first book.