Bard College Berlin News
Aziza Izamova ‘21 will co-curate the Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale
Uzbekistan National Pavilion
The 61st Venice Biennale marks the third year of participation for the The Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF). The exhibition, titled The Aural Sea will feature seven artists: Jahongir Bobokulov, Zi Kakhramonova, Aygul Sarsen, Zulfiya Spowart, Xin Liu, A.A.Murakami, and Nguyen Phuong Linh. Their multimedia works center on the environmental history of the Aral Sea basin in Central Asia. The pavilion will hold a special focus on Karakalpakstan, “where the southern part of the inland salt lake has largely dried up due to mass irrigation projects in the 1960s. The exhibited pieces “will engage with mythmaking and storytelling as a restorative way to process ecological grief and imagine an alternative future for the region,” drawing inspiration from the writing of Allayar Darmenov, a Karakalpak author who delves into “the Soviet legacy of resource exploitation in the Aral Sea.”
“The curatorial process began with the formation of our team through the curatorial school held as part of the Bukhara Biennale in 2025,” Izamova says. There, the group came together as an ensemble of young curators, all aged 30 and under. Two of the curators, including Izamova, are from Uzbekistan directly, the other three from across Asia - Vietnam, China, and Japan. “Over several gatherings in Bukhara, we had the opportunity to learn from leading curators from around the world, who shared their experiences of working across different contexts and biennials. That process taught us not only about exhibition-making and the local art scene, but also about one another — about our different perspectives on what art can do,” Izamova says.
According to Izamova, the process of selecting artists led them to works which engaged questions of transformation: transformation of matter, of memory, of landscape. “The artists in the pavilion work across very different registers — from the memory of the Aral Sea, to the materiality of air and salt, to the intersections of science, technology, and art — but they are united by a shared sensitivity to the afterlife of things,” she says. Izamova describes the curatorial process as “deeply collaborative from the start.” Most of the artworks are new commissions made possible with the support of the Art and Culture Development Foundation of Uzbekistan, the pavilion’s commissioner.
The exhibition deals to a large extent with the legacies of Soviet resource exploitation in the region. Izamova, who has spent many years studying modern art in the European and the Soviet context, including her ongoing graduate degree at Harvard, views art as more than social commentary. To her, it is “an act of engagement with the public sphere, and often a proposal for an alternative, better (if sometimes utopian) life.”
The region tends to be perceived as “a site of environmental catastrophe, emptiness, and grief,” which is what the curatorial team aimed to challenge through The Aural Sea. While Izamova admits that this sense of loss is most definitely present, and even inseparable from the Soviet histories which shaped the region, she adds that the story of the Aral Sea is much more than a story of loss. “Art has the capacity to move beyond a purely descriptive mode, and that is why, in the pavilion, we are interested in the imaginative power of art: in its ability to open other ways of seeing, remembering, and relating to the region,” Izamova explains.
Izamova highlights the closeness between the artists and the curators, describing many conversations with the artists which helped her understand not only the formal aspects of the works, but also the personal worlds from which they came. “One conversation that especially stayed with me was with Zulfiya Spowart, whose work reflects on motherhood and the fleeting moments of childrearing through embroidery and textile installation. It was a deeply emotional conversation about life, death, and a mother’s love. What stayed with me most was the sense that, even coming from different places and experiences, we could still meet through certain shared human concerns — care, love, vulnerability, and the hope.”
Izamova feels that this project has been both similar and different from her previous work. As an art historian of the twentieth century, a large part of Izamova’s work consists of spending long periods of time in archives, museums, and libraries, often alone. “Working with contemporary artists is much more dynamic: it requires constant dialogue, responsiveness, and a different kind of openness as works evolve in real time,” she says.
“At the same time, engaging with the artistic and cultural heritage of Uzbekistan is not new to me. I wrote my undergraduate thesis at Bard College Berlin on the Savitsky Museum in Nukus, and I am currently working on a dissertation at Harvard about the institutionalization of craft in Soviet Uzbekistan. So in that sense, this pavilion continues a longer intellectual and personal commitment,” Izamova explains. “It has been both a great privilege and a profound learning experience, and I feel truly honored to be part of the team representing Uzbekistan in Venice this year,” she concludes.
The exhibition will open on May 9th.
By: Hana Trenčanová '28
Post Date: 05-05-2026