The Bukhara Biennial has announced further details for its upcoming edition, due to take place from 5 September 2025 until 20 November 2025,
The first edition of the Bukhara Biennial, entitled Recipes for a Broken Heart, will take place in historic landmarks around the city, which have been restored by the creative director of architecture, Wael Al Awar of the design firm Waiwai. Locations include four caravanserais (roadside inns along trade routes such as the Silk Road) Gavkushon Madrasa, Rashid Madrasa, and the former mosque, Khoja Kalon. These historic sites, and the biennial at large, will participate in the revitalisation of the city, recentring it as a space for exploration and learning, in celebration of cultural exchange and local culture to be enjoyed for generations.
The Uzbekistan Art and Cultural Development Foundation (ACDF) chairperson and commissioner of the Bukhara Biennial, Gayane Umerova, and Bukhara Biennial’s artistic director, Diana Campbell have disclosed further names of participating artists, with over seventy artists now set to take part in the Biennial. (See the list below)
The theme Recipes for a Broken Heart highlights complex relationships with food as a physical, spiritual or emotional healer and the role of community and participation.Food will play a key role in the Biennial as each site will host performances and culinary interventions, inviting audiences to relate further to one another through these experiences..
The artist’s projects will engage directly with the theme and engage with local artisans and craftspeople. Laila Gohar set to build a pavilion that can be eaten, made of sugar and salt crystals, tapping into local artisan craft by using navat, an artisanal Uzbek sugar crystal at risk of being lost due to industrial sugar processing. Samah Hijawi’s work will examine the relationship between the cosmos and food, delving into how trade along the Silk Road carried through food and intangible elements such as science and philosophy. Aisultan Seitov will work with Uzbek artisans to chronicle how the staple dish of palov was invented by Ibn Sina as a recipe for heartbreak, Marina Perez Simão will collaborate with Bakhtiyor Bobomurodov, an Uzbek artisan, to form a mosaic on a caravanseraifloor, meant as a map of the stars to portray the destabilisation felt during heartbreak. Tavares Strachan and Sabina Burkhanova, a local carpet weaver, will look to Langston Hughes’ poetry as they reinterpret it through carpet weaving. Pakui Hardware will collaborate with the Rakhimov family to use ceramics and AI to convert whispered secrets into sounds. Khadim Ali with Madina Kasymbaeva will explore the mythical bird, Simorgh, in a large-scale tapestry.
With a focus on healing from adversity by engaging with everyday architecture, Delcy Morelos uses textiles and weaving to transform a historic building in Bukhara into a safe and cocoon-like refuge, as gold embroiders Bakhshillo Jumaev and Mukkadas Jumaeva will work with Hana Miletić on woven forms of poetry. Kei Imazu’s work will look at fertility and food, while examining traditional Uzbek food rituals and local sources of nutrients, as well as motifs such as the Tree of Life.
Artist list
(Updated 21 January)
Ighshaan Adams
Khadim Ali
Majid Al-Remaihi
Ahmad Angawi
Tarek Atoui
Dana Awartani
Aziza Azim
Louis Barthélemy
Jahongir Bobokulov
Bakhtiyor Bobomurodov
Behzod Boltaev
Abdulvahid Bukhoriy
Sabina Burkhanova
Hera Büyüktaşcıyan
Gabriel Chaile
Yun Choi
Liu Chuang
Bahriddin Chustiy
Denis Davydov
Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser)
Binta Diaw
Bekhbaatar Enkhtur
Antony Gormley
Laila Gohar
Pavеl Georganov
Subodh Gupta
Heenat Salma Farm
Samah Hijawi
Carsten Höller
Kei Imazu
Gulnoza Irgasheva
Eva Jospin
Bakhshillo Jumaev and Mukkadas Jumaeva
Shonazar Jumaev
Aziza Kadyri
Zi Kakhramonova
Zokhir Kamalov
Madina Kasymbaeva
Oyjon Khayrullaeva
Munisa Kholkhujaeva
Islom Khudoyberdiev
Daria Kim
Jenya Kim
Shakuntala Kulkarni
Hassan Kurbanbaev
Jeong Kwan
Akmal Mihiddinov
Hana Miletić
Delcy Morelos
Gulnur Mukazhanova
Yulduz Mukhiddinova
Abdullo Narzullaev
Pakui Hardware
Alisher Rakhimov
Shokhrukh Rakhimov
Suchi Reddy
Slavs and Tatars
Ruben Saakyan
Zilola Saidova
Aisultan Seitov
Aziza Shadenova
Kamruzzaman Shadhin
Jurabek Siddikov
Marina Perez Simão
Tavares Strachan
Saule Suleimenova
Davlat Toshev
Erika Verzutti
Nomin Zezegmaa
