Sonya Imin is a Uyghur American PhD researcher and multi-disciplinary creative. Her research project at ULB explores how transformations in Uyghur exile are being negotiated through visual art and contemporary creative culture. Specifically, this project focuses on how diasporic identities are being articulated, how cultural shifts are being heightened by the realities of exile and genocide, and what narratives are being addressed through Uyghur creative arts. By looking at the dialogues around Uyghur art practices in diaspora, this project hopes to delineate specific shifts of perception and experience, areas of alignment and integration, strategies of resistance and (non)disclosure.

Prior to ULB, Sonya graduated with honors from the University of Kansas with a Master’s in Global and International Studies. Her thesis project focused on the experiences of home and belonging for a group of fourteen Uyghur women by exploring their relationships to the cultural aesthetics of objects and ritual in diaspora.

In addition to her academic work, Sonya is one of the co-editors of the Contemporary Uyghur Anthology, a multi-lingual collection of Uyghur art, poetry, and prose. She is also working on various forthcoming art and film projects spanning across the US, Europe, and Central Asia.

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