The patterns and techniques of suzani have evolved through generations of shared knowledge and cultural exchange, and were typically the repository of family stories. For her work, Kadyri developed a bespoke AI model to create a new visual language of suzani-inspired symbols to tell her own story. Working with skilled women artisans and longtime collaborators in Nurota, Uzbekistan, these contemporary motifs were then hand-embroidered into the artwork, connecting today’s digital technologies with lived craft traditions.

Sender Unknown asks what happens when traditional knowledge is translated into new technologies. While AI models absorb images into datasets, they often separate them from the people, histories and contexts that produced them — in this case, migration, intergenerational knowledge and authorship. Moving between handmade and digital processes, Sender Unknown explores whether technologies that risk erasing cultural histories might instead become tools for preservation, reinterpretation and new forms of creative exchange.

This film is part of the V&A's Jameel Programme, celebrating 20 years of The Jameel Gallery with Community Jameel.

With further support from the Sarikhani Family.