“Milk for Lambs” straddles the arid beauty of the Steppe and the decorated, festival-prepped yurts, but Butterflies of Aisha Bibi resides fully within persistent, intense visual stimulation. Set amid the eponymous terracotta-tiled mausoleum in Taraz and the massive turquoise-domed mausoleum to Turkic poet Khoja Akhmet Yassawi in Turkestan City, Menlibayeva recreates Aisha-Bibi’s ancient love story with contemporary relevancy. To be sure, there are male figures in Menlibayeva’s works: the shirtless omni-adolescent boys on the Steppe in “Milk for Lambs”, shadowboxing at the camera and carrying a lamb, searching for Umai; in the bemused men outside the mausoleums in Butterflies of Aisha Bibi, flapping her fabric wings or snapping photographs of the mesmerizing dancers. Perhaps the strongest male figure could be interpreted as the contemporary Karakhan Mukhammed, Aisha-Bibi’s suitor, peering out through the sunlight-pierced terracotta walls of the mausoleum interior, awaiting his love.