Uzbekistan’s National Pavilion Showcases The Aural Sea at the 61st Venice Biennale

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — On 10 February 2026, the Uzbekistan Art and Cultural Development Foundation (ACDF) announced the participation of Uzbekistan’s National Pavilion in the 61st Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art with the project The Aural Sea.

Commissioned by the Foundation’s Chairperson Gayane Umerova, the project explored the Aral Sea through mythmaking and storytelling, positioning imagination as a means to reflect on ecological transformations and envision alternative futures.

The exhibition focused on the Aral Sea region in Karakalpakstan, where more than 90% of the water volume has been lost since the 1960s due to large-scale river diversions for irrigation. The pavilion presented the Aral not only as an environmental crisis but also as a space of memory, knowledge, and cultural imagination.

The curatorial team—Sophie Mayuko Arni, Aziza Izamova, Kamila Mukhitdinova, Nico Sun, and Thai Ha—was formed through the Bukhara Biennale Curatorial School, initiated by ACDF under the artistic guidance of Diana Campbell. The project represents a collective research effort by a new generation of curators from Uzbekistan and other Asian countries.

The pavilion featured works by Jahongir Bobokulov, Zi Kahramonova, Aigul Sarsen, Zulfia Spovart, Xin Liu, A.A. Murakami, and Nguyen Phuong Linh. Artists worked across various media—from installations and interactive practices to textiles and painting—combining scientific modeling with folkloric imagination.

The title The Aural Sea resonated with the Biennale’s theme, In Minor Keys, emphasizing a mode of exhibition based on listening. The pavilion raised questions about what it means to “hear” a landscape that has undergone dramatic change and what can be learned by attuning to the voices of local communities.

The scenography and architectural design were developed by a group of students and young architects from Aju University in Tashkent and the Tashkent Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, under the guidance of the GRACE studio.

This marks Uzbekistan’s third participation in the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art and continues the Foundation’s long-term engagement in the Aral Sea region, including initiatives such as the Aral Culture Summit and the educational program Aral School.

Alongside the National Pavilion, ACDF presented Vyacheslav Akhunov’s solo exhibition Instruments of the Mind as an official parallel project at Palazzo Franchetti, organized by the Tashkent Center for Contemporary Art (CCA).