The Bukhara Biennale of Contemporary Art as a platform for public diplomacy and artistic dialogue with the world

One of Uzbekistan's most significant and innovative cultural projects in 2025 was the first Bukhara Biennale of Contemporary Art, “Recipes for Broken Hearts.” The very name of the exhibition evokes a storm of emotions and ignites curiosity to learn the story behind these masterpieces. This event became not just an exhibition, but an interdisciplinary platform combining traditional crafts and contemporary art, architecture and gastronomy, music and poetry. The biennale was held at historical sites in the ancient city—madrasahs, caravanserais, and ensembles included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Bukhara is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, where a huge number of trade routes with ancient great countries passed, which contributed to the development of rich architecture, religion, education, and craft heritage in Bukhara. It was this heritage that became the foundation for the selection and construction of the biennale concept. The theme “Recipes for Broken Hearts” is symbolic and multi-layered. Referring to a legend, the great physician-philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) compiled a special recipe, including pilaf, to heal the emotional pain of the prince of that time. This story became the starting point, a metaphor designed to unite the ideas of healing, both spiritual and physical, through art and common cultural practices that incorporate has a very humane meaning.

The curatorial team—Diana Campbell and Gayane Umerova conceived the biennale as an experiment in combining tradition and innovation, the local and the global, giving a voice to masters and contemporary artists, engaging with themes of loss and despair—whether the loss of cultural landscapes, ecology, or eternal memory—in order to show a way to overcome this loss by demonstrating it through art, collective practices, and rituals. One of the most striking features of the Bukhara Biennale is the use of historical locations, in which the very materiality of the space becomes part of the artistic expression. The organizers deliberately rejected the neutral “white cubes” of contemporary galleries, choosing ancient ensembles, caravanserais, madrasas, and mosques as living carriers of memory. This approach has transformed the city into an open stage, where every arch, brick, and carved portal pattern enters into dialogue with contemporary works. The Khoja Gavkushon ensemble, built in the 16th century and including a madrasah, mosque, and minaret, has become a symbol of Bukhara's spiritual and educational heritage. Its courtyard houses installations that explore the theme of silence and sound: audio performances featuring prayers, the voices of artisans, and the sound of the wind. In this way, the architecture has been given a new lease on life not as a museum, but as a living organ of the city. No less expressive is the space of the Ayoozhon caravanserai, where Silk Road merchants once stayed. Here, contemporary artists presented works dedicated to the theme of journey, exchange, and movement both physical and cultural. Fabric installations, maps, and ritual objects formed a metaphor for a “new caravan”—a flow of ideas uniting peoples. In the Rashid madrasah, artists explored the theme of memory and continuity. The halls, where theology and philosophy were once taught, were transformed into laboratories of visual thinking: video projections echoed quotations from Sufi treatises, and ancient inscriptions on the walls became the backdrop for contemporary texts.

The Magoki-Attori Mosque, one of the oldest religious buildings in Central Asia, which has preserved traces of pre-Christian and Islamic layers, made a particular impression. Here, art met archaeology: light installations emphasized the layering of time, combining ancient symbols, Islamic ornamentation, and digital projections. Thus, in the context of the biennale, the architecture of Bukhara became not just a backdrop, but an equal participant in the artistic process. It not only “hosted” the works, but also became a work of art itself a mediator between the past and the present, the sacred and the everyday, the local and the global. The interaction of artists with space provided an opportunity to take a fresh look at the city as a living organism, where memory, craft, art, and human emotions form a single cultural body. Healing not only individual, but also collective, cultural, and ecological. Artists from different countries created a dialogue in which personal experience was transformed into a universal message. Three projects Longing, The Earth's Shadow, and the gastronomic performance Café Oshqozon vividly embodied the philosophy of the biennale, where art becomes a “medicine” for the heart and memory.

Longing (Hylozoic/Desires and Margilan masters, Rasuljon Mirzaahmedov)

The Longing project is a blend of contemporary ecological art and ancient Uzbek handicraft. Along the Shahrukh Canal, like the throbbing artery of an ancient town, flows 350 meters of ikat cloth, dyed with vegetable colors and created by Margilan masters on the initiative of renowned textile artist Rasuljon Mirzaahmedov. The work is a topography of the disappearing Aral Sea from the deep blue colors of the water to the whitish salt marshes crystallizing in the sun. In this work, the material is not only something, but also becomes a metaphor for the living body of the earth: fibers as nerves, patterns as traces of memory. The wind that passes through the material offers a breath of respiration, as if nature itself is trying to regain some strength. The project is a pull towards loss, but not one that is accomplished through tragedy, but one of call, engagement, and mutual responsibility towards future generations. The meeting between artists with diverse cultures Canada, India, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan creates a form of public diplomacy: through artistry, through touching and being touched by texture, through working with natural materials, world views intersect. Ecological pain becomes a universal point of contact, and the process of weaving together becomes an act of solidarity.

The Earth’s Shadow (Delsie Morelos and Bakhmur craftsmen)

The installation “The Earth's Shadow” by Colombian artist Delsie Morelos is one of the most emotionally powerful works on display. Morelos's works are always based on a sensory interaction with nature: earth, clay, spices, fibers, and scent are her tools, no less expressive than paint or sound. In Bukhara, she combined her concepts with the craft techniques of Bakhmur masters, creating a spatial composition in which sacred architecture and organic materials form a single body. At its core is the motif of the “eye of God,” an ancient Latin American symbol of protection and spiritual insight, woven from threads. In Bukhara, this symbol has taken on a new life: jute threads, dyed in earthy tones, are stretched across the space of the mosque, where light and shadow constantly change perception. Visitors passing through this “woven space” seem to undergo a purification, leaving behind the noise of the outside world. The installation embodies the idea of the collective breath of the earth; the “shadow” in the title here means not darkness, but protection, shelter, the opportunity to take root. The artist combines Latin American spiritual tradition and Uzbek craft culture, creating a field of dialogue: clay, threads, and the aroma of spices become a language that can be understood without translation This is the highest form of public diplomacy, when cultures meet not at the level of words, but at the level of touch, of sensual, holy images.

The first edition of the Bukhara Biennale of Contemporary Art, "Recipes for Broken Hearts," is a milestone for Central Asia and Uzbekistan as a whole. This isn't just an exhibition of pieces; this is a stage upon which artistic, cultural, and human interchange is employed as a method of healing, remembrance, and dialogue. The Biennale teaches us that people-to-people diplomacy works when people are motivated by the desire for the real thing, admiration for heritage, and enthusiasm for co-creation, when art becomes a means to reach oneself, others, and the past.