Over 70 Participants join Bukhara Biennial’s Debut Edition: Recipes for Broken Hearts

Newly announced participants include Igshaan Adams (South Africa); Khadim Ali (Australia), Tarek Atoui (Lebanon); Louis Barthélemy(France), Samah Hijawi (Jordan/Belgium), Carsten Höller (Sweden), Jeong Kwan (South Korea), Hana Miletić (Belgium), Saule Suleimenova (Kazakhstan), Tavares Strachan (Bahamas), Aisultan Seitov (Kazakhstan), and Uzbek artists Jahongir Bobokulov, Abdulvahid Bukhoriy, Denis Davydov, Zi Kakhramonova, Munisa Kholkhujaeva, Jenya Kim, Ruben Saakyan and Zilola Saidova, among others.  The immersive, interdisciplinary gathering will take the form of an expanded, multi-sensory feast for all members of the public over 10 weeks from 5th September to 20th November 2025. 

The event will showcase collaborations between artists and artisans, connecting both internationally acclaimed and emerging artists with some of Uzbekistan’s most masterful craftspeople. All works are being made in Uzbekistan, building on Bukhara’s rich history as an intellectual and economic centre along the Silk Roads and an important hub for cultural exchange where craft, learning, and artistic production have commingled for centuries.  

The theme of Recipes for Broken Hearts, conceived by Diana Campbell as this year’s Artistic Director, departs from a local legend in which polymath and father of modern medicine Ibn Sina invented the recipe of the staple Uzbek dish, palov, to cure a prince’s sickness caused by an impossible love for the daughter of a craftsman. Referencing this story of healing and recovery, Campbell’s curatorial vision imagines the biennial as a body which is fed physically, emotionally, and spiritually, encouraging communal participation and experiential response.     

The biennial will unfold thematically as a participatory journey across walkable historic landmarks illustrative of the city’s rich and multi-layered heritage, including four caravanserais (presenting heartbreak as part of a journey of life), Gavkushon Madrasa (a space to learn from feelings), the former mosque Khoja Kalon (a space to transcend hardships), and Rashid Madrasa (a place to memorialise, mourn, and move on). The revitalised sites have been restored by Wael Al Awar of the Dubai and Tokyo-based design firm waiwai and will be unveiled to the public as part of the biennial. This project of revitalisation is a permanent contribution to the urban fabric of Bukhara.   

Guiding visitors on this journey, the sites are linked by interventions within public space that serve to connect the audience to each other through performative and culinary interventions. Munisa Kholkhujaeva (Uzbekistan) will present a project across three sites that deals with the themes of death and immortality through the language of plants and attempts to give a cure for the sadness of loss and reveal how death sprouts new life. The work of Bukharan artist, Oyjon Khayrullaeva (Uzbekistan), directly recalls the biennial as body with mosaic organs presented throughout all sites, pairing mosaics with healing recipes that are held with Bukharan grandmothers and exploring what these organs mean idiomatically in Uzbekistan today. Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser, India/UK) will present a monumental ikat tapestry created in collaboration with the weavers from the city of Margilan. Several kilometres long, the ikat will function as a textile artery connecting the start and end of an evolving and growing cultural district. The pattern on the ikat references both the effacement of the blue tile on mosques in Bukhara as well as the evaporating Aral Sea. A water-summoning ritual performance will accompany the vast tapestry every full moon. 

Building on Bukhara’s role in the history of the global spice trade and exploring food as a means of building togetherness, participants taking part in the chef’s programme will frame food as an emotional medium, weaving stories of grief and healing into performative culinary rituals. Artist Carsten Höller and Brutalisten’s head chef Coen Dieleman will stage a residency exchange with Uzbek chefs Bahriddin Chustiy and Pavel Georganov to create a dining experience focused on the distinct tastes of Uzbek ingredients. Both the biennial’s theme, Recipes for Broken Hearts and their project challenge normative approaches to dining and emotions, using the act of eating to bridge human vulnerability with conceptual experimentation. Korean Buddhist monk and chef Jeong Kwan will share her food-centered spiritual practice at the biennial, while also exploring the history of the Korean-Uzbek community in Uzbekistan. Further chefs will be announced in advance of the biennial. 

Award-winning film director Aisultan Seitov (Kazakhstan) interprets the myth of Ibn Sina’s palov as a remedy for heartbreak in a three-part film developed in collaboration with Uzbek artisans. Laila Gohar (Egypt) will build an edible pavilion made of artisanal Uzbek sugar crystals (navat) and salt crystals bringing us back to the child-like wonder of acquiring knowledge through taste. The project addresses the preservation of traditions, such as the process of making navat, a culinary craft at risk due to the industrialisation of sugar. Samah Hijawi’s (Jordan/Belgium) commission, inspired by the ancient astrological writings of Al-Biruni, will look at how food connects us with the cosmos, and how food in Uzbekistan, traded along the Silk Roads, was a carrier of science and philosophy to the world.   

Stories of heartbreak and healing will be told through crafts deeply entrenched in Uzbekistan’s social, cultural and mercantile histories. Marina Perez Simao (Brazil) will create a ceramic mosaic in collaboration with artisan Bakhtiyor Bobomurodov (Uzbekistan), which forms a celestial map on the floor of a caravanserai, inspired by Uzbekistan's history of astronomical instruments and exploring the disorienting loss of balance felt during heartbreak. Tavares Strachan (Bahamas) is collaborating with carpet weaver Sabina Burkhanova (Uzbekistan) to create carpets addressing the heartbreaks of history through the poetry of great African-American poet Langston Hughes. Pakui Hardware (Lithuania) will present an interactive installation made in collaboration with the seven-generation ceramic tradition of the Rakhimov family. Inspired by Ibn Sina’s psychoanalytic methods, secrets shared by visitors are transformed by AI into soothing humming sounds and played from black-glazed ceramic sculptures resembling gall bladders. Working with embroidery master Madina Kasymbaeva, artist Khadim Aliwill create a monumental tapestry that takes visitors on a journey towards the benevolent mythical bird Simorgh, a wise creature that has healed the world through multiple periods of destruction. 

Under the thematic umbrella of hardship and healing through vernacular forms of architecture, Delcy Morelos (Colombia) creates an installation woven into one of Bukhara’s most magnificent heritage buildings like a spider’s web. Textile threads intertwine with heritage columns, where earth, desert sand, clay and spices are mixed and kneaded together to produce a tactile, olfactory and spatial experience, enveloping the viewer almost completely as if they were in a fragrant and fresh cocoon of silk and speaking to the protective nature of  shadows. Kei Imazu’s (Japan) sculptural gate will celebrate fertility and the bond between nourishment and life, incorporating symbolic Uzbek traditions like bread ceremonies and edible earth snacks that nourish women during pregnancy, while motifs of the Tree of Life, storks, and pomegranates further emphasise continuity and renewal. Uzbek gold embroiderers Bakhshillo Jumaevand Mukkadas Jumaeva will collaborate with Hana Miletić (Belgium) to make poetic woven sculptures, reminiscent of Japanese kintsugi techniques that highlight rather than obscure signs of do-it-yourself repair. 

Appointed by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, architect Wael Al Awar, is leading a revitalisation and conservation plan focused on carefully preserving and reactivating historic spaces, utilising existing infrastructure to create a sustainable framework for the city, its creative industries and inhabitants. As part of this vision, the biennial will mark the start of a long-term process and ever-expanding cultural district in Bukhara, to include the development of a music school, artist studios, a digital archive with recovered photos tracing the country’s history, a museum of fine art, and an exhibition space set to occupy a 1920s water tower. Simultaneously, as the biennial’s Creative Director of Architecture, Al Awar is responsible for developing the scenography of the biennial and the design of the exhibitions, merging historic preservation with contemporary artistic interventions. 

All artists and curators participating are supported by an expanding interdisciplinary advisory group, to date consisting of scholars specialising in Central Asia and working across Uzbekistan and internationally: religious historian Aziza Shanazarova (Columbia University), historian James Pickett (University of Pittsburgh), cultural historian Anna Pronina (Central European University), archaeologist Jangar Ilyasov (Institute of Art Studies, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan), conservation expert Ajmal Maiwandi (Aga Khan Trust for Culture), and art historian Aziza Izamova (Harvard University). 

Wider plans to reestablish Bukhara through art and culture, including the launch of the first biennial in the UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, are spearheaded by Gayane Umerova, chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation.  

Recipes for Broken Hearts will take place from 5th September to 20th November 2025 in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.  

The current and growing list of participants includes to date includes:  Ighshaan Adams (South Africa); Khadim Ali (Australia/Afghanistan/Pakistan); Majid Al-Remaihi (Qatar); Ahmad Angawi (Saudi Arabia); Tarek Atoui (Lebanon); Dana Awartani (Saudi Arabia); Aziza Azim (Uzbekistan); Louis Barthélemy (France); Jahongir Bobokulov (Uzbekistan); Bakhtiyor Bobomurodov (Uzbekistan); Behzod Boltaev (Uzbekistan); Abdulvahid Bukhoriy (Uzbekistan); Sabina Burkhanova (Uzbekistan); Hera Büyüktaşcıyan (Turkey); Gabriel Chaile (Argentina); Yun Choi (South Korea); Liu Chuang (China); Bahriddin Chustiy (Uzbekistan); Denis Davydov (Uzbekistan); Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser, India/UK); Binta Diaw (Senegal); Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Mongolia); Antony Gormley (UK); Laila Gohar (Egypt); Pavеl Georganov (Uzbekistan); Subodh Gupta (India); Heenat Salma Farm (Qatar); Samah Hijawi (Jordan/Belgium); Carsten Höller (Sweden); Kei Imazu (Japan); Gulnoza Irgasheva (Uzbekistan); Eva Jospin (France); Bakhshillo Jumaev and Mukkadas Jumaeva (Uzbekistan); Shonazar Jumaev (Uzbekistan); Aziza Kadyri (Uzbekistan); Zi Kakhramonova (Uzbekistan); Zokhir Kamalov (Uzbekistan); Madina Kasymbaeva (Uzbekistan); Oyjon Khayrullaeva (Uzbekistan); Munisa Kholkhujaeva (Uzbekistan); Islom Khudoyberdiev (Uzbekistan); Daria Kim (Uzbekistan); Jenya Kim (Uzbekistan); Shakuntala Kulkarni (India); Hassan Kurbanbaev (Uzbekistan); Jeong Kwan (South Korea); Akmal Mihiddinov (Uzbekistan); Hana Miletić (Belgium);  Delcy Morelos (Colombia); Gulnur Mukazhanova (Kazakhstan); Yulduz Mukhiddinova (Uzbekistan); Abdullo Narzullaev (Uzbekistan); Pakui Hardware (Lithuania); Alisher Rakhimov (Uzbekistan); Shokhrukh Rakhimov (Uzbekistan); Suchi Reddy (US); Slavs and Tatars; Ruben Saakyan (Uzbekistan); Zilola Saidova (Uzbekistan); Aisultan Seitov (Kazakhstan); Aziza Shadenova (UK/Kazakhstan); Kamruzzaman Shadhin (Bangladesh); Jurabek Siddikov (Uzbekistan); Marina Perez Simão (Brazil); Tavares Strachan (Bahamas); Saule Suleimenova (Kazakhstan); Davlat Toshev (Uzbekistan); Erika Verzutti (Brazil);  Nomin Zezegmaa (Germany/Mongolia).

Main Image: Delcy Morelos in Bukhara. Photo courtesy of Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation