Uzbekistan, a central area within the Silk Street and Soviet Union, has lengthy linked “East and West” by way of main cities like Samarkand, Bukhara and its present-day capital, Tashkent. The modern recognition of those cultural facilities has usually concerned Western and European establishments, and particularly UNESCO, within the designation of the Zarafshan-Karakum Hall, alongside a number of websites and artisans situated alongside the historic buying and selling route, and crafts of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The inaugural Bukhara Biennial claims to talk from the area—and reimagine the chances of such an occasion—by itself phrases. It’s certainly one of Central Asia’s largest modern cultural initiatives thus far, becoming a member of Tashkent’s Centre for Modern Arts (CCA) and Nationwide Museum of Uzbekistan (because of open in 2027) and, in neighboring Kazakhstan, the brand new Almaty Museum of Arts and relocated Tselinny Middle of Modern Tradition.
To take action, it makes use of a dependable recipe. 100 sixty visible and efficiency artists, artisans, architects and cooks from 39 international locations are gathered collectively by the Biennial’s inventive director Diana Campbell. The Los Angeles-born curator calls upon a variety of buddies—Himali Singh Soin, from her work on Frieze Initiatives for Frieze London (2018-2019), and Antony Gormley, from her personal Samdani Artwork Basis and flagship Dhaka Artwork Summit (DAS) in Bangladesh—to current expressions of heartbreak, right here a common and virtually apolitical emotion.
Crucially, although, all the artists have collaborated with artisans based mostly in Uzbekistan. Half of the individuals are from Central Asia, although extra typically exhibit elsewhere, highlighting the significance of the establishment for each locally-based and diasporic practitioners. Tashkent-based multimedia artist Denis Davydov, in collaboration with Bahrom Gulov and Anvar Gulov, additionally from Uzbekistan, highlights constructed notions of cultural authenticity with handcrafted whistles and toys, animated by way of computer-generated imagery (CGI). The set up is introduced throughout worn carpets, pandjara (lattice)-clad screens and analog tv units, and retold to the acquainted tune of Disney’s Aladdin (1992). The writhing figures in Aziza Shadenova and Andrey Arakelyan’s Echo of the Self: The Soul in Movement, the Physique Forgotten (2024-2025) advance the histories of orientalism as held and reproduced in human our bodies right this moment, equally introduced on a sequence of screens.
Others take “conventional” and vacationer crafts as their place to begin, advancing Bukhara’s lengthy apply of puppet theater and efficiency. (Maybe surprisingly, Wael Shawky, well-known for his collaborative work on this discipline, leans into town’s copper-making as a substitute.) Over the opening weekend, Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Zavkiddin Yodgorov introduced Safar (Journey) (2025), a procession of exaggerated symbolic animals stated to have as soon as traveled Sufi thinkers throughout Central and South Asia. Puppetry was strongly protected by locals by way of the arrival of Islam within the area; in Bukhara, the apply is held up by members of the Uzbekistan Nationwide Guard.
In a state characterised by its tightly managed authorities, media and lack of real political competitors, that is as—and the way—political the Biennial will get. The generic theme of ‘heartbreak’ is open to interpretation, and in addition conceptual stretching, however has resulted usually in fairly restrained works; regardless of the chance introduced by the Biennial, which mandates that each one work be new and produced on web site. However scale and delicate language employed within the works’ titles might be learn in some ways. In Standing by the Ruins IV (2025), Dana Awartani invitations us to stroll amongst massive ceramic tiles pressed with soils from Palestine. The medium is absent within the official description. In contrast, the interpretation in Awartani’s concurrent exhibition on the Arnolfini in Bristol factors out the Palestinian-Saudi artist’s first inspiration: the washroom tiles of the fourteenth-century Hamam al-Sammara in Gaza, one of many area’s oldest bathhouses, which was destroyed by Israeli bombardment in 2023.
Awartani’s work, explicitly a part of a wider sequence, is in lots of respects an exception. All the works within the Biennial are new commissions, made in collaboration with artisans within the nation and produced by the Uzbekistan Artwork and Tradition Growth Basis (ACDF). Whereas some motifs—such because the pomegranate—are shared throughout cultures, the strongest works have been cast by way of problem, highlighting the realities and inventive potential of intercultural collaboration. These embody the ceramic organs Black Bile (2024-2025), produced by Pakui {Hardware}, the collaborative duo of Ugnius Gelguda and Neringa Černiauskaitė and the Rakhimovs’ Ceramic Studio in Tashkent.
Each the Biennial and ACDF have a powerful emphasis on public engagement and programming, however first cater to “worldwide” audiences—evident within the predominance of the English language in the course of the opening weekend. Actually, the Biennial begins at a time of elevated curiosity and illustration of Central Asian cultural influences, together with the primary solo exhibitions of Biennial artists Slavs and Tatars and Wael Shawky at esea Modern in Manchester and Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, respectively.
Although staffed from the States, the Biennial’s wider schooling program, supported by the King’s Basis in London, is certainly one of many connections to the U.Okay. The Delfina Basis has supported a variety of modern artist residencies in London, together with Biennial artist Gulnoza Irgasheva, in addition to Nazira Karimi and Intizor Otaniyozova (2025), two members of the Davra Analysis Collective initiated by alum Saodat Ismailova. With the shut of the Biennial in November comes the opening of Ismailova’s solo exhibition on the Baltic Centre for Modern Artwork in Gateshead, their largest presentation within the U.Okay. thus far.
Although the short-term, transitory nature of those exhibitions may work properly for his or her nomadic topic issues, deeper analysis into Uzbekistan’s presence in everlasting collections can be underway. Bukhara’s central position in textile manufacturing was referenced within the British Museum’s wonderful show, “Struggle rugs: Afghanistan’s knotted historical past,” whereas ikat textiles, or abr as they’re referred to as in Uzbek, derived from the Persian language phrase for “cloud,” have been proven in cross-cultural exhibitions like “Chilly Struggle Scotland” on the Nationwide Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Like Davydov, London-based artist Aziza Kadyri employs new applied sciences to refigure cultural heritage; in Bukhara, Lower from the Identical Fabric (2024-2025) weaves by way of and out of one of many central madrasas, reflecting the central placement of artists of Uzbek heritage. Kadyri co-represented Uzbekistan on the Venice Biennale in 2024 with a equally immersive textile set up; now, she is growing analysis into the collections of the V&A in London.
The Biennial raises questions concerning the museumification of Bukhara itself. Tens of millions of {dollars} (or quadrillions of sum) have been poured into the conservation and restoration of town upfront of the cultural occasion. Guests return to websites which have been repurposed repeatedly, now marked “beneath state safety.” The Magoki Attori Mosque, which hosted the Opening Ceremony and Biennial “Archive,” has served as a (Persian) Zoroastrian temple, a mosque and a synagogue on Fridays earlier than its transformation right into a carpet museum in the course of the communist interval (1924-1991). That is embraced within the short-term nature of the Biennial and most of the public works, which change with the climate.
ACDF has invested in locations supposed for normal use by the native inhabitants, together with a brand new library in Tashkent and pop-up in Bukhara, and, promisingly, the forthcoming Jadids’ Legacy Museum (2027). Led by architect Lina Ghotmeh, the mission intends to rework one scholar’s house into an open house to discover the continuities of the titular Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century motion of cultural, social and academic reform.
Many themes are raised however underdeveloped; meals, for example, could possibly be the tenet for a complete version. In Café Oshqozon, diners can style Brutalist Bukhara, a menu developed by Uzbek cooks Bahriddin Chustiy and Pavel Georganov and Coen Dieleman and Carsten Höllen from Brutalisten in Sweden. It challenges the homogenization of tastes by pluralizing elements like carrot, tomato and quince, every served 5 methods on a single plate. The price of this providing is unclear, once more elevating the query of who the Biennial is really for. Questions of seasonality are instructed however not associated to wider questions of ecological grief, the relations between salt and water, nor using fruit- and vegetable-derived pigments, inks, dyes and spices in works by Delcy Morelos, Samah Hijawi and Feruza Asatova.
One other instance on this first iteration is the native relation to Ibn Sina (or Avicenna), a big thinker, doctor and chief in fashionable drugs within the tenth Century. The parable that Ibn Sina invented plov (the nationwide dish of Uzbekistan) because the recipe to remedy the damaged coronary heart of a prince who couldn’t marry the daughter of a craftsman was an inspiration for Campbell on this version. “Every thing I wanted was in that sentence,” she remarked in a ‘symposium’ that preceded the Biennial, which shares its didactic construction with the talks of the general public program to date, during which individuals can freely pay attention however not ask questions or elevate factors themselves. Extra participatory occasions to come back over the following two months will inform of the native public engagement—and urge for food—for such occasions, notably amongst younger individuals, who comprise the vast majority of Uzbekistan’s inhabitants right this moment.
The Bukhara Biennial has some nice elements. However like all good recipes, it needs to be taken as a place to begin, not a prescription, for higher cultural servings.
The Bukhara Biennial, “Recipes for Damaged Hearts,” runs by way of November 20, 2025.
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