Zukhra
Saodat Ismailova
Tashkent | Paris
Categories

Zukhra
Saodat Ismailova
Tashkent | Paris
Categories
According to Central Asian legend, one day a young woman vanished and turned into the planet Venus, the bright morning star that continues to this day to make women’s wishes come true. In a breath-taking video installation, Saodat Ismailova knits together images, text, and sound into a polyphonic experience of time and matriarchal history. Where intimate personal recollections coincide with collective historical memory, ‘Zukhra’ touches on themes that include grief, the dissolution of boundaries and the history of women’s liberation in Central Asia. Resting on traditional Uzbek mattresses, we see a woman sleeping, hear her heartbeat and sounds from her past. This emblematic image of the sleeper, the dreamer, which gradually disappears opens a journey through the artistic dream worlds of the Incubation Pod.
On July 1 at 4:30 PM, artists Saodat Ismailova and Apichatpong Weerasethakul will meet in conversation at Museum Angewandte Kunst.
“Zukhra” is part of the curated art program “Incubation Pod. Dreaming worlds” at the Museum Angewandte Kunst, which gathers different artistic ideas, spaces and worlds in the form of interactive installations, virtual realities and performances. The whole program and tickets are available here.
Photo: © Carlos Casas
About the Artist(s)
Saodat Ismailova belongs to a generation of Central Asian artists who came of age in the post-Soviet era. She studied at the State Art Institute in Tashkent. Her video installation ‘Zukhra’ was invited to the Biennale di Venezia in 2013, and in 2017 she developed her award-winning short film ‘The Haunted’. In 2022 she exhibited her multimedia installation ‘Chilltan’ at documenta fifteen in Kassel. Her works have been acquired by numerous collections, including those of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.