Bukhara Biennial is a transformative and evolving platform for contemporary art and culture launching in September 2025 in the city of Bukhara, a UNESCO Creative City of Craft & Folk Art.
Inspired by a widely known Uzbek legend, Recipes for Broken Hearts takes the form of an expanded feast to explore the healing power of art and culture through communal participation and will look at time as a key ingredient in art, cooking and healing. Bukhara’s rich history as an important intellectual and economic centre for production on the Silk Roads and as a hub for cultural exchange between Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the twentieth century, will be manifested through an interdisciplinary experience with a strong focus on craft and cultures of togetherness.
Curated by Artistic Director Diana Campbell with Wael Al Awar as Creative Director of Architecture.
Bukhara Biennial is an open-for-all forum with free admission. This new initiative is developed by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation with its chairperson, Gayane Umerova, as commissioner.
All commissions, including works by international artists, will be made in Uzbekistan and the entire biennial will provide an open-for-all forum with free admission.
For ten enchanting weeks, the Bukhara Biennial will be hosted in the ancient city of Bukhara for an extraordinary gathering of over 70 internationally acclaimed artists, musicians, architects, poets, master artisans, and celebrated chefs.
The inaugural edition themed ‘Recipes for Broken Hearts’ will feature international artists such as Igshaan Adams, Carsten Höller, Jeong Kwan, Delcy Morelos (here featured), Tavares Strachan, Saule Suleimenova, Aisultan Seitov, alongside Uzbekistan’s own Jahongir Bobokulov, Munisa Kholkhujaeva, Daniyar Davydov, Zilola Saidova, and Jenya Kim.
Together with Commissioner Gayane Umerova, Chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), Curator Diana Campbell and Creative Director of Architecture Wael Al Awar, the biennial will transform Bukhara into an unparalleled arena of artistic, culinary, and cultural exploration. It will also include architectural reinvention, breathing new life into Bukhara’s meticulously restored historic madrasas, caravanserais and former mosques.