Uzbekistan Pavilion at Venice Biennale Revives the Aral Sea

The Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, installed in a hangar at the Arsenale, addresses the ecological catastrophe of the Aral Sea. Once the fourth largest saline lake in the world, the Aral Sea has largely turned into desert due to Soviet-era diversion of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers for cotton irrigation, destroying a 10,000-year-old lake and its endemic species. Recent efforts, including a dam on the Syr Darya, have raised water levels and revived fish populations, though the sea will not return to pre-1960s levels. Curated around writer Allayar Darmenov, who as an 18-year-old used literary invention to imaginatively recover what was lost, the pavilion features artists from Uzbekistan (especially Karakalpakstan), China, Vietnam, and the UK. Works include Vyacheslav Akhunov's installations, Zi Kakhramonova's participatory 'Archive of Lost Forms' where visitors mold fish from salt, A. A. Murakami's tapestry 'The Sun Sets in a Shell' depicting zebra mussels, Zulfiya Spowart's 'Beshik' exploring maternity, Nguyen Phuong Linh's animated photographic sculptures, Xin Liu's enzymatic decomposition of plastic bottles, Aygul Sarsen's paintings of the Aral Sea as a female deity, and Jahongir Bobokulov's airbrush on polyurethane foam work evoking an orange sun. The pavilion is organized in partnership with the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation.