Uzbekistan will be launching Bukhara Biennial, the country’s first international biennial, in September 2024, The Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) announced. The event will take place across the ancient city’s historical sites including Fayzulla Khodjaev House-Museum, Miri-Arab Madrasah, Magoki Attori Mosque, Kalyan Minaret and the Olimjon Caravanserai, marking the largest contemporary art initiatives in Central Asia.
Curated by Artistic Director Diana Campbell – who also serves as Artistic Director of the Dhaka-based Samdani Art Foundation and Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit – alongside Wael Al Awar as Creative Director of Architecture, the inaugural edition of the Bukhara Biennial is titled Recipes for Broken Hearts. The exhibition will take the form of an ‘expanded feast’ to explore ‘the healing power of art and culture through communal participation’ and ‘time as a key ingredient in art, cooking and healing’. The theme takes inspiration from a legend surrounding a staple Uzbek dish, palov, which is said to have been invented by Ibn Sina – the Islamic Golden Age polymath – to mend the broken heart of a lovelorn prince.
On view at the show will be works spanning art, crafts, textiles, music and culinary arts as well as new commissions made locally in the Central Asian country. In the meantime, each weekend the show will invite different Uzbek and international chefs to showcase the craft of cooking, situating culinary culture within the history of Bukhara as well as the global spice trade.
‘For centuries, religious and cultural traditions from all corners of the world have commingled in Bukhara, resulting in a rich atmosphere of learning, craft and artistic production,’ Diana Campbell says in a statement.
‘It has always been a place where people came together to find togetherness in the quest for a more meaningful life through a search for spiritual, intellectual, and worldly knowledge. Recipes for Broken Hearts will emphasise this legacy by revitalising some of the extraordinary sites that were essential to developing the culture that we celebrate today, bringing them back into the pulse of life of the city through an interdisciplinary event which goes beyond the traditional notions of an art biennial.’
Confirmed participants include: Aziza Azim, Behzod Boltaev, Gabriel Chaile, Binta Diaw, Laila Gohar, Antony Gormley, Subodh Gupta, Pakui Hardware, Gulnoza Irgasheva, Kei Imatsu, Daria Kim, Oyjon Khayrullaeva, Shakuntala Kulkarni, Hassan Kurbanbaev, Liu Chuang, Delcy Morelos, Marina Simão, Himali Singh Soin, David Soin Tappeser, Wael Shawky, Davlat Toshev, Nomin Zezegmaa.
