She first achieved international recognition with the release of Zukhra, a video installation that recounts the history of Uzbekistan through a state of sleeping character, which won a prize from the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.
[6] She gained worldwide recognition at the 2013 Venice Biennale for the video installation Zukhra,[1][2][4][6][5][7][8][11] in which a woman recounts the history of Uzbekistan while lying in bed.
[2][5] In 2017, she was artist-in-residence at the Norwegian Office for Contemporary Art and made a short film The Haunted,[5][7][8] which covered the extinction of the Turan tiger.
[6][5][11][12][13] She also graduated from the French Contemporary Arts Studio Le Fresnoy [fr],[5] where she had made Stains of Oxus and Two Horizons.
[8][7] She then put together the multimedia piece Qyrq Qyz, which retold a Central Asian legend of 40 warrior women,[14][6] and was debuted Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) New York, and later at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
[1] In 2021, Ismailova established the DAVRA collective, which brought together artists from throughout Central Asia,[1][3][7][12][15] in order to document and publicise local culture.
[7][8][12] Ismailova participated in DAVRA's 40-day program at Documenta fifteen, where they shared their research on Chilltans, a kind of spirit in Central Asian folklore.
[8][7] Ismailova exhibited another work at the 2022 Venice Biennale:[2][8][17] Chillahona a three channel video with a reimagined Tashkent traditional Embroidery, film is dedicated to perestroika years in Uzbekistan.