This fall, the Asian Art Museum presents Rave into the Future: Art in Motion, the first exhibition celebrating the collective joy and resilience found on the dancefloors of West Asian diaspora communities, opening on October 24, 2025 in the museum’s Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion.
Featuring women and queer artists from the West Asia diaspora based in the United States and Europe, Rave into the Future: Art in Motion is inspired by the modern rave culture of West Asia, centering the dance floor as a space of community, belonging and empowered resistance. The importance of this exhibition has already garnered attention from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in the form of two supporting grants. Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and exhibition curator Naz Cuguoğlu received a curatorial research fellowship grant from the foundation early last year and the Asian Art Museum was recently awarded an additional grant to mount the exhibition.
“When I first moved to the US from Turkiye, I was struck by how much the Western narratives of West Asia involved Orientalism and a fetishisation of pain,” says Naz Cuguoğlu, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and exhibition curator. “It was important to me to create a space for narratives that build solidarity through joy, pleasure and laughter as a way to reclaim agency. These artists and their work do just that; they highlight the critical interplay between visual arts, music, dance and the formation of community throughout the cultural sphere of West Asia and its diaspora.”
Throughout the exhibition, artworks by local artists join global voices to create a multisensory space that envelopes audiences in sonic and visual experiences. A commission from Oakland-based Arab Persian American artist Sahar Khoury includes a multimedia sculpture with a working DJ deck; local Asian, Asian American and Asian diaspora DJs will be highlighted as the installation is activated throughout the exhibition.
Press release from Asian Art Museum
Image: Yasmine Nasser Diaz. For Your Eyes Only. 2023. Presented at OXY ARTS, Los Angeles, 2023. Performance and choreography by TCS_ Téa Devereaux, Chryssa Hadjis and Simrin Player. Created in collaboration with Yasmine Nasser Diaz. Image courtesy of the artist and Ochi Gallery
