The National Pavilion of Uzbekistan has announced details of its presentation for the 61st Venice Biennale. Commissioned by Gayane Umerova , chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, the pavilion is entitled The Aural Sea and explores the environmental and cultural histories of the Aral Sea region through mythmaking and storytelling.
Curated by the inaugural cohort of the Bukhara Biennial Curatorial School, the exhibition brings together emerging curatorial voices from Uzbekistan and across Asia, including Sophie Mayuko Arni, Aziza Izamova, Kamila Mukhitdinova, Nico Sun and Thái Hà. Working collaboratively, the curators have approached the Aral Sea by positioning imagination as a critical tool for engaging with environmental transformation and rethinking possible futures.
The exhibition will feature a group of international artists working across installation, painting and interactive media, including works by Jahongir Bobokulov, Zi Kakhramonova, Aygul Sarsen, Zulfiya Spowart, Xin Liu, A A Murakami and Nguyen Phuong Linh. Their practices span scientific enquiry and folkloric interpretation, treating the Aral Sea as a site of knowledge.
Responding to the Biennale’s theme In Minor Keys, The Aural Sea emphasises listening as both method and metaphor. Drawing inspiration from Karakalpak writer Allayar Darmenov, whose speculative fiction reimagines the currently degraded Aral Sea as restored, the exhibition considers imagination as a form of agency in the face of loss.
Developed in collaboration with young architects from leading Uzbek institutions such as Ajou University in Tashkent and the Tashkent Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, the pavilion’s spatial design further reflects this interdisciplinary approach.
The 61st Venice Biennale will run from 9 May to 22 November 2026
