Our People > Naima Morelli

Naima Morelli

Journalist

Naima is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region. She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries. She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.

Articles

Venice Biennale

The Aural Sea: Uzbekistan’s Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale

No other edition of the Venice Biennale has seen Central Asia so well represented. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan all have their own national pavilions, and there are also two exhibitions featuring Central Asian artists at the Palazzo Franchetti – “Instruments of the Mind” by the Uzbek conceptual artist Vyacheslav Akhunov, and the show “TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East”. All three national pavilions have nailed the theme for the 61st Biennale: “In Minor Keys”. Conceived by the late curator Koyo Kouoh, this edition of the Biennale aims to showcase subjects that might not be the major issues of our times. Each pavilion has done so by connecting specific problems concerning the region to wider cultural or ecological concerns. You can read the Times of Central Asia's coverage of the Kazakh pavilion here. The Uzbekistan Pavilion, housed in the Quarta Tesa of the Arsenale, tackles ecological crisis in a way that is deeply personal to the country, but can speak to everyone. The pavilion conveys beauty and hope while not shying away from destruction. The Aural Sea It’s all there the pavilion’s title. "The Aural Sea" is a play on the Aral Sea, one of the great ecological tragedies of our times. You are being asked, before you even enter, to prepare for an alchemy of sorts. The Aral Sea – or rather, the place where the Aral Sea used to be – sits predominantly in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, in Uzbekistan’s northwest. In the 1960s, Soviet irrigation projects redirected the rivers that fed it, and over the following decades, the world's fourth largest inland lake shrank to a fraction of its former size, leaving behind a salt desert scattered with the rusting hulls of fishing boats. [caption id="attachment_32633" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Stranded boats on the former shoreline of the Aral Sea; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] It is one of the most complete environmental catastrophes of the twentieth century, but the Uzbekistan Pavilion decides to speak about the crisis in an imaginative and almost abstract language. Bringing together perspectives from Central Asia – as well as from even further east – the curators position myths and fiction as alternative systems of knowledge, capable of carrying emotional and ecological memory. The curatorial framework was developed by the inaugural cohort of the Bukhara Biennial Curatorial School, constituted by Kamila Mukhitdinova, Sophie Mayuko Arni, Nico Sun, Thái Hà and Aziza Izamova. The collective was assembled through Uzbekistan’s Art and Cultural Development Foundation, convened by curator Diana Campbell (who already curated the much-acclaimed Bukhara Biennale) in partnership with the Delfina Foundation. The exhibition takes its cue from Allayar Darmenov, a young Karakalpak author who began writing about the Aral Sea in 2015, and has created new mythologies around it for contemporary times. [caption id="attachment_50040" align="aligncenter" width="2500"] Installation view, The Aural Sea, Uzbekistan National Pavilion, 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2026. Photo by Gerda Studio. Courtesy of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation. [/caption] The Artworks Coming into the...

3 hours ago

Venice Biennale

A Polyphonic Process: Kazakhstan at the 2026 Venice Biennale

"There is a Kazakh proverb that says: a foolish person arrives with noise, sweeping everything away in their path, while a wise person arrives quietly, carefully observing the world around them." Syrlybek Bekbota, the curator of the Kazakhstan Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale – the most important art event in the world – offers me this thought at the dawn of the exhibition's opening, and it feels like both a manifesto and an omen. The theme of the pavilion is perfectly in line with the overarching curatorial theme, In Minor Keys, conceived by the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator Koyo Kouoh, who tragically passed away before the Biennale opened. And yet the controversies around this edition contradicted this minor key premise, instead turning it into a highly political event: the jury's resignation, widespread protests against the participation of Israel and Russia, rallies against the exploitation of art workers. The Kazakh pavilion was not immune to controversies itself, after artist Äsel Kadyrhanova's installation Machine (2013) – a meditation on Stalin-era repression featuring a vintage typewriter, Soviet-era arrest warrants, and red thread – was dismantled before the exhibition opened. However, on the day of the pavilion inauguration itself, no trace of the controversies was visible inside the high-ceilinged space. Listening to the Quiet Housed within the Museo Storico Navale near the Arsenale entrance, Qoñyr: The Archive of Silence marks Kazakhstan's third participation in the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, and its most ambitious yet. It is also worth noting that it is the first time a Central Asian nation has selected its pavilion curator and artists through an open call – open to citizens of Kazakhstan, with priority given to those currently living and working in the country. It is a deliberate emphasis on rootedness rather than the diaspora-friendly internationalism that, for better or worse, dominates many national pavilions. The exhibition centres around the word qoñyr, a key term in Kazakh cosmology. While its literal meaning refers to the colour brown, qoñyr carries a far richer metaphorical significance: it can describe a sonic register, the scent of earth, or a form of silence with deeply embodied meaning. It is the attentiveness to minor vibrations – the wind, the breath, a footstep – that renders audible what is usually displaced by noise. The pavilion takes its cue from a traditional Kazakh instrumental composition of the same name by the twentieth-century composer Äbiken Khasenov, whose work embodies a broader cultural shift: as cultural theorist Zira Nauryzbay has noted, Kazakh music before the twentieth century was predominantly composed in major keys, while the century's upheavals – Soviet occupation, famine, mass deportations – precipitated a distinctive turn toward minor tonalities. That sonic transformation is the exhibition's guiding metaphor. "In periods of global instability, attention is often drawn to loud events and immediate reactions," the curator Bekbota explains. "Within this atmosphere of noise, personal memory, everyday experience, and quieter forms of knowledge can easily remain unnoticed." His curatorial wager is that restraint, rather than volume, can...

3 days ago

Venice Biennale

Kyrgyzstan Pavilion Brings Nomadism to the 2026 Venice Biennale

Central Asia is increasingly visible on the contemporary art map, and few events carry more symbolic weight than the Venice Biennale, often described as the Olympics of the art world. In recent years, Kazakhstan’s privately funded art scene and Uzbekistan’s state-backed art scene have often led the region’s international push. This year, Kyrgyzstan is is determined not to lag behind. The country’s pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale marks its second dedicated national participation. Kyrgyzstan first appeared in this format in 2022 with Gates of Turan, a state-commissioned installation by Firouz FarmanFarmaian on the Venetian island of Giudecca that drew on nomadic heritage and local craft traditions. At the center of the 2026 pavilion is Alexey Morosov, a Bishkek-born artist who has lived and worked in Italy for years. He chose the former church of Santa Caterina at Convitto Foscarini, in Venice’s Cannaregio district, as the setting for BELEK, the Kyrgyz word for “gift.” Curated by art historian Geraldine Leardi, the exhibition reflects on water and Kyrgyzstan’s tradition of generosity. The works are in close dialogue with the space that hosts them. The former church, founded in the 14th century, still carries traces of a fire during restoration work in the 1970s. “You can almost smell the burn,” Morosov said at the opening, standing in the presbytery. “For me, it’s very important to pay attention to the genius loci, the spirit of the place,” the artist added. “In a place like this, you have to understand precisely how to use space as a tool, while also respecting it.” Artistic Nomadism Born in Bishkek in 1974, Morosov was trained in the traditions of classical Western art and developed a deep interest in Greek and Roman archaeology, Renaissance painting, and medieval architecture. At 17, he began traveling. He has lived and worked in Lucca, Tuscany, since 2015. “In his practice, the artist naturally bridges Eastern and Western cultures,” Leardi said. “By birth, the original content of his art is Central Asian. His training and artistic education, however, developed in a Western direction.” BELEK, she said, represents a synthesis of those backgrounds. Morosov himself frames it in terms of nomadism. " It's my land, my blood, because my family is originally from Kyrgyzstan, from the middle of the 18th century. I’d describe my mode as meta-nomadismo," he said. “And in my mind, Kyrgyz tradition, Kyrgyz soul, are absolutely in harmony with the Italian conception of art and style of life.” Leardi came to the project as a Byzantinist with no previous deep engagement with Central Asian art. She describes her research for the pavilion as its own kind of journey, traveling to Kyrgyzstan via Mongolia and Korea, “like Marco Polo,” she said, laughing. What she found was a country of extreme contrasts. “It’s not a quiet land. You feel a lot when you’re there. It’s very challenging,” she said. Her task was to “find the channels, find the paths to communicate in the right way between the country and Venice, because there are...

1 week ago

Kyrgyz Art

Munara Abdukakharova: Stories of Art, Identity, and Political Memory from Kyrgyzstan

A yellow hammer-and-sickle symbol is sewn onto black, yellow, blue and red mattresses in Up on Manas, down on Sovetskaya, a powerful artwork by artist Munara Abdukakharova presented last year at Fondazione Elpis in Milan. Inspired by the traditional kurak korpe (the hand-stitched patchwork cushions and mattresses that roll up like futons), the piece reimagines a familiar domestic object as a carrier of collective memory for Central Asian migrants, often the most tangible material link to home. Born in 1990 in Bishkek, just one year before Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the Soviet Union, Abdukakharova belongs to a generation that grew up during a profound political and cultural transition. The lingering Soviet legacy, the rise of nationalism, increasing religious influence, and the pressures of global capitalism all intersect in her work, which frequently draws on textiles, felt, and everyday objects rooted in local culture. “The art I make is mostly narrative, based on my everyday life, and depicts broader social issues in Kyrgyzstan,” says Abdukakharova from her home in Bishkek, from where she realizes most of her work. A finalist of the B. Bubikanova Art Prize, Abdukakharova works across embroidery, printmaking, photography, and installation. Speaking to The Times of Central Asia, she reflects on her path from architecture to contemporary art, the political realities shaping life in Bishkek, and the role artists play in questioning the direction of a young nation. TCA: You often describe your artistic practice as emerging from observation and your everyday experience. Did you grow up in a family that was into art? Abdukakharova: Not at all. All the members of my family are pharmacists, and while my parents wanted me to go to medical school, I couldn’t; I’m really scared of blood! (laughs) I went to an architectural school instead. I didn’t draw as a child, but I remember really liking to dismantle objects, whether it was toys or even a chair, furniture, and trying to put it back again… something I still love to do. The passion for drawing came only later on, in high school. TCA: Your decision to study architecture in Bishkek came at a time when many young people in Kyrgyzstan still looked toward Russia for their education. Could you describe the circumstances that led you to that choice and the cultural expectations surrounding it? Abdukakharova: When I finished high school in 2008, studying in Moscow was still seen as the best option. Unlike how it is today, growing up in Bishkek, there was a strong belief that anything coming from the former Soviet Union was inherently good. The teacher who helped me prepare university applications only suggested schools in Moscow or St. Petersburg; other countries were never really discussed, even though I already spoke English quite fluently. Looking back, I realize how dominant that perspective was at the time. I took a gap year, thinking that I could go to an art school later, maybe the Moscow Surikov State Academic Institute of Fine Arts. In the end, my parents didn’t let...

3 months ago

Kazakh Art

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken: The Art of Saule Suleimenova

“I’m a very emotional person,” says artist Saule Suleimenova with a bright, open laugh from her home studio in Almaty. Widely recognized as one of the most significant Kazakh artists working today, Suleimenova’s spontaneity and passion emerge clearly as the artist lightens up when talking about the joy and necessity of making work, when she excavates memories of the early days of making art, or when suddenly, she grows gloomy, remembering some of the most painful moments in the history of her country. Behind her back stands a large canvas, where translucent elements, almost resembling stained glass from a distance, slowly reveal themselves as fragments of discarded plastic bags fused together through heat and a whole lot of patience. Born in 1970, Suleimenova has developed a practice that spans painting, drawing, photography, and public art, consistently navigating the delicate and often hard to define boundary between personal memory and collective history: “I feel my personal life can’t be detached from politics and everything that happens around me,” she says, embodying, in a way, a motto from the seventies: “the personal is political.” Suleimenova was an early member of the Green Triangle Group, an experimental artist collective known for its avant-garde and punk-influenced art, which emerged during the Perestroika era and the collapse of the USSR, playing a significant role in revolutionizing contemporary art in Kazakhstan. Today, she is working mostly with archives, vernacular imagery, and the visual language of contemporary urban space. In her work, she investigates how narratives are formed, distorted, and even rewritten over time, particularly within the historical and political context of Kazakhstan. An example is her ongoing series, Cellophane Paintings, composed entirely from used plastic bags, transforming everyday waste into luminous, layered pictorial fields that hold together subjects as vast as socio-political trauma, from the Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, human rights violations, Karlag, one of the largest Gulag labor camps, and the Uyghur genocide. Those heavy themes are associated with some that are more intimate: family members, flowers, and cityscapes. Suleimenova is currently participating in the Union of Artists at the Center of Modern Culture Tselinny in Almaty (15 January – 19 April 2026), curated by Vladislav Sludsky, an exhibition reflecting on artistic partnerships as systems of survival in a region where art historically survived through shared spaces and personal alliances between artists, rather than institutional support. The Times of Central Asia spoke to Suleimenova about memory, material, and the ways personal experience and political history converge in her art. [caption id="attachment_42718" align="aligncenter" width="2500"] From the series, One Step Forward[/caption] TCA: Your recent work at the Bukhara Biennial, Portraits of the people of Bukhara, was made from polyethylene bags collected by the community itself. Can you tell me how your work on this project took shape? Suleimenova: From the beginning, the work was meant to be collaborative with local artists or artisans rather than something already finished and brought from outside. I decided to collaborate with a folk ensemble of Bukhara women - the retired performers...

4 months ago

Uzbek Art

Mapping the Inner Landscape: An Interview with Oyjon Khayrullaeva

In recent years, a new generation of Uzbek artists has begun to reshape how culture, history, and identity are visually narrated. Among them is Oyjon Khayrullaeva, whose practice moves fluidly between photography, digital collage, and large-scale public installations. Born after independence and largely self-trained outside formal art institutions, Khayrullaeva works with inherited visual languages such as Islamic ornament and traditional textiles, reassembling them into contemporary forms that speak to the present moment. Her recent project for the Bukhara Biennial, called “Eight Lives,” marks a turning point in this exploration. Installed in the public and historical spaces of the ancient city, the work consists of monumental mosaic organs that connect physical vulnerability with emotional states and collective memory. Through the human body, Khayrullaeva maps experiences of anxiety, healing, spirituality, and social pressure, transforming ornament into anatomy and architecture into inner landscape. The Times of Central Asia spoke with the artist to trace how Eight Lives emerged, how collaboration with mosaic masters shaped its final form, and how audiences in Uzbekistan are responding to seeing contemporary art in public spaces. TCA: Can you tell me about your beginnings as an artist? Did you always want to become one? Khayrullaeva: From early childhood, my parents noticed that there was something a bit unusual about me. My father has always called me - and still does - an “alien,” because I’m probably the only person in my family who chose a creative path. No one else in my family has been involved in art, at least not for the past seven generations. I was always a creative child, but I never imagined that I would become an artist. As a child, I tried many things; I went to music school, studied piano, and attended various creative clubs. Still, the idea of pursuing art professionally never crossed my mind. Becoming an artist was, in many ways, an unexpected turn in my life. For a very long time, honestly, until around the age of 24, I had no clear idea of what I wanted to do or what my profession would be. I was never certain about it. So yes, life is an interesting thing. You never really know where it’s going to lead you. TCA: Your artistic journey began with photography before evolving into digital collage. How did your early work in photography shape the way you now approach layering, texture, and composition in your digital pieces? Khayrullaeva: When I was around 17 or 18, I became interested in photography. At that time, I didn’t have a camera, so I was shooting with my phone. For my birthday, I was given some money, and I decided to use it to buy a camera. My father added a bit more, and I bought my very first one. It was an incredible feeling taking photos, holding the camera, and shooting. Mobile photography and working with a camera are completely different experiences, and that difference brought me so much joy. I remember the pure pleasure of photographing everything...

5 months ago

Aspan Gallery

Where Wings Grow: New Show at Aspan Gallery, Almaty

Let’s move Aspan Gallery from name to place, from reputation to reality. As one of the Kazakh galleries most visible on the fair circuit, known for its impeccable presentations and strong roster of Central Asian artists, visiting its headquarters in Almaty felt almost inevitable. It didn’t disappoint. Tucked into the underground floor of a shopping complex in a leafy area of Almaty, where you might catch a glimpse of a stylish passerby balancing a matcha cup before descending the stairs, the gallery unfolds as a quiet enclave. There, Where Wings Grow opens as a multifaceted meditation on the cycles of nature, and particularly on the steppe, explored by several Central Asian artists through ecological, historical, and mythic lenses. What emerges is not a nostalgic portrait of a nomadic past but a layered reflection on resilience and renewal. At the center of the curatorial vision is Alan Medoev, the archaeologist whose 1960s expeditions uncovered hundreds of sites across the Kazakh steppe. His discoveries challenged Soviet portrayals of the region as an empty expanse and instead presented it as a cradle of memory. The exhibition extends that lineage, tracing how the steppe continues to act as an archive where cultural, personal, and ecological time intersect. The installation is clean and deliberate: suspended collages, unframed paintings, and subtle shifts in light. Walking through, one feels the exhibition itself has been conceived as a kind of landscape. [caption id="attachment_37355" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Where Wings Grow, installation view; image: Theo Frost[/caption] The Interplay Between Distance and Proximity This quality resonated strongly when encountering the works. At a distance, some pieces seemed almost naïve or casual in their painterly surfaces, but up close, their textures, materials, and embedded details revealed far more intricate worlds. This is true of Saule Suleimenova’s Plasticographies (two works titled Zhana Omir – New Life and Steppe Romanticism). From afar, they appear to be simple, even sentimental landscapes. Up close, however, they are revealed as collages of discarded plastic: fragments of packaging, commercial logos, counterfeit brands, and old ID cards. Suleimenova, who grew up in Almaty and trained as an architect before turning to socially engaged art, calls plastic “a treasure” and uses it to question both waste and memory. Within these luminous surfaces are startling details such as embryonic forms and small figures hidden in the texture. These unsettling images evoke new generations coming into a world shaped by waste, suggesting both renewal and ecological crisis. Steppe Romanticism distills the landscape into minimal horizons and contemplative silence. Yet knowing it is made of plastic prevents forgetting the contradiction, serenity marked by civilization’s residue. It recalls how landscapes themselves operate, inviting from afar but, up close, layered with scars, residues, and histories. [caption id="attachment_37353" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Moldakul Narymbetov, "Untitled"; image: Aspan Gallery.[/caption] In a similar spirit, Moldakul Narymbetov’s paintings establish the exhibition’s tone. A founding member of the radical Kyzyl Tractor collective and one of the central figures in Kazakh contemporary art, Narymbetov (1948–2012) was known for fusing folklore, shamanic motifs, and gestural abstraction....

8 months ago

Almaty Museum of Arts

Kazakhstan’s Cultural Reawakening: Almaty Opens Its New Museum of Arts

First, a young Kazakh schoolgirl in a black dress with a starched collar, her hair tousled by the wind of the Aral Sea, clutches a large Russian book tightly to her chest as she stands before a lonely school building in the middle of nowhere. Then, a camel speaks: “Give me back the sea!” “No!” cries a woman, her face hidden beneath a military hat. She stands before an abandoned edifice, her head wrapped in fur, her body strangely adorned with eggs. [caption id="attachment_36257" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Image: Almagul Menlibayeva[/caption] This series of surreal images is from the video Transoxiana Dream, by one of Central Asia’s pioneering contemporary artists, Almagul Menlibayeva. The Times of Central Asia attended her major solo show, I Understand Everything, curated by Thai curator Gritiya Gaweewong, a powerful exploration of memory, trauma, and identity, which provides the “treble clef” for the opening of the Almaty Museum of Arts. The show brings together works spanning decades, from Menlibayeva’s early paintings and collages in the 1980s, to her recent internationally recognized video and photography works. Through a variety of mediums, she charts the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ecological devastation of Kazakhstan, and suppressed cultural memory. [caption id="attachment_36258" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Almagul Menlibayeva, People Talking against a Blue Background, 1988; image: Almaty Museum of Arts[/caption] As always in her practice, the feminine and feminist narratives are at the forefront. Menlibayeva’s women are at times bound with nature or with military rule, alternately merciful or merciless. Her works tackle ecological concerns, tying them directly to the destruction of patriarchy. “For us, opening our program with Menlibayeva’s show was highly significant,” says Meruyert Kaliyeva, the museum’s artistic director. “She is a pioneering Central Asian artist who is known internationally but at the same time has always dealt with topics and themes that are important locally.” A New Museum in Almaty The inauguration of the Almaty Museum of Arts represents a decisive step in shaping Kazakhstan’s creative future. As the country’s first large-scale contemporary art museum, it houses over 700 works collected across three decades, offering a panoramic view of modern Kazakh art while opening pathways to Central Asian and international dialogues. [caption id="attachment_36265" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Almaty Museum of Arts; image: Alexey Poptsov[/caption] Its mission extends beyond exhibitions: the institution positions itself as a center for education, research, and collaboration, aiming to nurture local artists and connect them to global networks. For Kazakhstan, long without a dedicated contemporary art museum, this moment signals a new era, one in which cultural identity is asserted with confidence, and the arts are recognized as a vital force for national memory as well as international visibility. Kaliyeva emphasizes how essential it is that Kazakh artists now have a platform where voices once peripheral to national culture can take center stage. She also stresses the urgency of the moment: in a world reshaped by geopolitical fractures, climate crises, and cultural decolonization, this opening is necessary: “It’s a moment for Kazakhstan to assert its own narratives, to host...

9 months ago

Art and Culture

Bridging Continents: Launching the VIMA Art Fair in Cyprus

In the art world, fairs often have a meteoric rise and fall in an oversaturated market of competing events. But every so often, one lands with a quiet, deliberate weight, embedding itself in the soil of its context and revitalizing it. VIMA Art Fair in Limassol, Cyprus, is one such project. Unfolding in a transformed wine warehouse near the sea, VIMA resisted the sterile polish of typical fair venues. Here, the Mediterranean wind mingled with the hum of languages, from Russian to Arabic, Greek, and Turkish, to English. The fair was founded by three Russians who have established themselves in Cyprus - Edgar Gadzhiev, Lara Kotreleva, and Nadezhda Zinovskaya - all of whom have brought a deep well of curatorial and institutional experience from Central Asia, Eurasia, and beyond. The trio have diverse backgrounds: Zinovskaya used to manage Ayarkut, an international art foundation operating across Kazakhstan and Mexico, together with Gadzhiev, who specialized in marketing in the cultural sector. Lara Kotreleva, meanwhile, has a museological background in Moscow and founded Sphere Space, an ongoing research initiative dedicated to architectural heritage in Limassol. To set up the fair, they teamed up with an expert committee comprising the Cypriots Alexandros Diogenous and Tasos Stylianou, co-founders of Limassol Art Walks, and Andre Zivanari, director of the Point Center for Contemporary Art in the capital, Nicosia. Of the 27 participants at the fair, there was an emphasis on the ten Cypriot galleries, commercial, not-for-profit, and artist-run spaces, part of Cyprus’s flourishing contemporary art scene, as well as on a number of Middle Eastern and Greek galleries. The Caucasus also made an appearance, with Georgia’s Window Project (Tbilisi) presenting a thoughtful mix of Georgian and international artists. Their mission centers on bridging generational narratives, with a particular emphasis on promoting emerging Georgian talents alongside an often-overlooked older generation of artists. At VIMA, the gallery highlighted the work of female artists, including Tamar Giorgadze, Sigrid Gloerfelt, Natela Grigalashvili, Tamara K.E., and Anie Toidze. Representing Azerbaijan, pop/off/art (Baku) featured a dynamic selection of artists primarily from the post-Soviet sphere as well as Eastern and Central Europe, showcasing works by Despina Flessa, Andrey Krasulin, and Shamil Shaaev. The mood was easygoing and fresh, but did not shy away from important socio-political themes that are unavoidable on the island, from the Greek-Turkish divide, to the arrival of a number of expats fleeing wars. Through a program of talks and a collateral exhibition, the fair leaned into this complexity and spelled out the necessity of communities coexisting, as well as articulating the desire to create new cultural infrastructure through public and private collaboration. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Edgar Gadzhiev, Lara Kotreleva, and Nadezhda Zinovskaya. [caption id="attachment_32435" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Portrait of the co-founders of the VIMA Art Fair, Edgar Gadzhiev, Nadezhda Zinovskaya, and Lara Kotrelevaimage; image courtesy of the VIMA Art Fair[/caption] TCA: Why did you choose Cyprus as the location to launch this project? Gadzhiev: It wasn’t a random decision. We conducted long-term research, and it became...

1 year ago

Central Asian Art

Central Asian Perspectives Take Center Stage in Milan

A pale Milanese dawn draped the city in shifting greys, as visitors crossed the threshold into the space of Fondazione Elpis, a foundation created to promote dialogue with emerging geographies and young artists. This time, it was Central Asian artists who were in the spotlight, claiming a shared history fractured by Soviet rule and global currents. The show YOU ARE HERE: Central Asia redraws a regional map, allowing artists to redraw the borders of their belonging beyond nation-states. At the same time, it invites each visitor to relate to the works by locating its place within these stitched, erased, and reconfigured narratives. Curators Dilda Ramazan and Aida Sulova orchestrated twenty-seven artists into a living constellation: from Munara Abdukakharova’s rolled patchwork, its golden hammer-and-sickle motifs softened by the hand-stitched curves of Kyrgyz kurak korpe, to Vyacheslav Akhunov’s furious erasures of scraped notes, the show reassembled in unexpected patterns stories of resilience, resistance, and reimagined belonging. YOU ARE HERE not only reframed Central Asia for a European audience but asserted that the region’s histories are neither static nor singular, they are stitched, erased, reconfigured, and claimed anew by the very people who live them. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Kazakh curator, Dilda Ramazan. [caption id="attachment_31541" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] "YOU ARE HERE. Central Asia", installation view, primo piano, Fondazione Elpis, Milano © Fabrizio Vatieri Studio[/caption] TCA: Can you tell us about the genesis of the show? The show emerged after the invitation of the Fondazione Elpis, whose founder, Marina Nissim, became interested in the region and its artists after seeing one of the Central Asian pavilions at the Venice Biennale. By presenting the complex Central Asian landscape to a European public who might not know it very well, we wanted to give artists the platform for free expression without framing the region from the stereotypical perspective, as is often the case in the Western context. We wanted the artists to reflect on the idea of space and belonging through the idea of locating oneself. TCA: Do you feel there is a growing awareness of Central Asia in Europe? Yes, I can feel and see it, but it is a natural process one should expect within the logic of globalization. The exhibition addressed the impact of Soviet and post-Soviet transitions on the cultural identities of Central Asian nations by showcasing artists of several generations. Some of them had a direct experience of living under the Soviet regime, so again the artists spoke for themselves and the region’s past through their works. [caption id="attachment_31542" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Emil Tilekov, Traces and Shadows, 2024 © Fabrizio Vatieri Studio[/caption] TCA: How is the theme of migration explored in the exhibition, particularly concerning its economic and emotional implications for Central Asian communities? Migration was one of the key aspects evoked in the show because it is still an experience lived by the artists and/or their relatives and families. Two Kyrgyz artists, for example, raised this issue in their projects. This was the case in the video by Chingiz...

1 year ago

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