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...

Uzbekistan at the 2025 Venice Biennale: Ekaterina Golovatyuk on the Modernist Legacy of a Soviet-Era Solar Furnace

Is it possible to preserve architectural heritage while working towards sustainability? And what to make of the architectural relics of the past century? Can they somehow take on new meaning rather than remaining a representation of dystopias and utopias of the past? All these questions and more are addressed by the Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Running alternate years with the Art Biennale, this is undoubtedly one of the most important architectural events in the international arena. Promising to be a thought-provoking exploration of Soviet-era scientific ambition, modernist architectural heritage, and the challenges of sustainability in a rapidly changing world, the pavilion hosts the research of GRACE studio - an architectural firm established by Ekaterina Golovatyuk and Giacomo Cantoni - which operates at the intersection of built heritage, contemporary urbanism, and cultural production. Commissioned by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), the pavilion responds to the theme of the Biennale’s curator, Carlo Ratti’s overarching Biennale concept of 'Intelligens'. The pavilion focuses on the Sun Institute of Material Science, originally known as the Sun Heliocomplex, a vast Soviet-era solar furnace built outside Tashkent during the Cold War to test materials at high temperatures. What emerges is the paradox of a structure designed for technological advancement that now faces questions of obsolescence and adaptation in contemporary discourse. TCA spoke with Ekaterina Golovatyuk to understand how the pavilion evolved from years of research into Tashkent’s modernist legacy and why this solar furnace has become the focal point of Uzbekistan’s presence at the Biennale. [caption id="attachment_30103" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Heliocomplex Sun, field of heliostats, Tashkent, Uzbekistan; image: Armin Linke[/caption] TCA: The Uzbekistan Pavilion for the 2025 Venice Biennale builds on your previous research, Tashkent Modernism XX/XXI. Can you tell us how this project began? This is a project commissioned and initiated by Gayane Umerova of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation that works with cultural heritage, museums, and other culture-related initiatives in Uzbekistan but also promotes Uzbekistan’s culture abroad. They have curated large exhibitions in the Louvre, in the British Museum, showing historical artifacts from Uzbekistan, but also art of the 20th century, and Tashkent Modernism is part of their mission in regards to architecture. The Tashkent Modernism XX/XXI project began in 2021, when it became clear that Tashkent had started to change so rapidly that special tools had to be put in place in order to protect the recent architectural heritage that, at the time, was mostly not listed and therefore at risk. Our project team consisted of multiple experts from Uzbekistan and abroad, including a historian, Boris Chukhovich, a team of preservation specialists from Politecnico di Milano led by Davide Del Curto, urbanists Laboratorio Permanente, and an artist [photographer], Armin Linke. For this project, we started by selecting 40 buildings and then narrowed it down to 24, for which we created monographs and statements of significance that described the important values of the building as well as what parts should be absolutely kept and what parts could...