Why are artists, architects and ecologists meeting in Uzbekistan’s Aral Sea Region?
Most guests to Uzbekistan persist with the Silk Highway vacationer path, exploring the mosques and madrasas of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, and maybe the intriguing mixture of Islamic and Soviet modernist structure of the capital, Tashkent.
Amid the distant, arid landscapes of northern Uzbekistan, nevertheless, artists, architects, ecologists, and activists are gathering in a metropolis much less frequented by worldwide guests.
Nukus, the regional capital of Karakalpakstan, is enjoying host to the inaugural Aral Tradition Summit: a possible springboard for sustainable transformation and cultural renewal within the Aral Sea area, as soon as the fourth-largest lake on the earth and now typically seen as a tragic image of environmental neglect and its devastating penalties.
Spearheaded by the Uzbekistan Artwork and Tradition Improvement Basis (ACDF), this summit will set the stage for a novel cross-disciplinary dialogue on how artwork, tradition, design, and science can rework the area’s future.
The Aral Sea disaster
The collapse of the Aral Sea is among the largest man-made environmental disasters in historical past.
Throughout the Nineteen Sixties, the Soviet Union diverted water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers for agricultural irrigation, drastically lowering the quantity of water flowing into the Aral Sea. By the Eighties, the Sea had shrunk to lower than half of its unique measurement, and by 2007, a lot of the northeastern half had dried up utterly.
The outcomes have been devastating. As soon as ample fish populations disappeared, biodiversity plummeted, and the native economic system, which relied on the Sea, collapsed. The area’s residents, notably within the city of Moynaq, have been left with the remnants of what was as soon as a thriving fishing business.
Now, what stays is an unlimited, barren seabed, typically whipped up by mud storms carrying salt and poisonous chemical substances.
Uniting science and tradition
Quite than taking a look at this backdrop as purely a bleak cautionary story, past redemption, the Aral Tradition Summit affords an invite to ask and focus on: Can we use the teachings of the previous and harness tradition and heritage to encourage change?
For Gayane Umerova, Chairperson of the ACDF, tradition and surroundings are essentially intertwined.
“For hundreds of years Uzbekistan’s wealthy heritage and traditions have been intrinsically linked to and knowledgeable by our surroundings,” she says. “We imagine the inventive industries can have a job in serving to us develop long-term, sustainable options that may defend the native ecology, unite the group, and drive innovation,” she provides, underlining how the summit seeks to embody this connection, uniting the inventive industries with scientific and ecological experience.
With this connection in thoughts, from 5-6 April – sizzling on the heels of the Samarkand Worldwide Local weather Discussion board on 4 April – Nukus will host a wealthy programme of panel discussions, networking boards, and cultural occasions. Artists, ecologists, and native companies will collaborate to discover methods of revitalising Karakalpakstan, the area surrounding the Aral Sea, by means of sustainable practices, whereas a roster of cultural immersions – that includes meals, music, and artwork – will permit guests to attach deeply with the native heritage and traditions.
What’s extra, this can happen on the earth’s largest (non-collapsible) yurt, in homage to the normal dwellings of the area’s nomadic peoples.
On this setting, echoing the gathering of households round a fireplace, conversations will discover salient questions for the area: utilizing tradition, structure and heritage as catalysts for local weather motion; driving change by means of content material; girls’s management; how artwork and custom form identification; and agriculture as tradition.
Worldwide experience, native roots
The roster of consultants collaborating contains worldwide names from throughout artwork, design, structure and ecology, equivalent to Aric Chen, Creative Director of Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut; Belgian panorama architect Bas Smets; founder and principal architect of waiwai, Wael Al Awar; Kazakhstani biodesigner Dana Molzhigit; and Natalia Idrisova, curator of Tajikistan’s ‘Polygon’ Artwork Group.
These worldwide voices will likely be in dialog with key figures in the area people, whose company is essential within the space’s regeneration. Amongst these collaborating will likely be Karakalpak artist Saidbek Sabirbayev; theatre director Sultanbek Kallibekov; Aijamal Yusupova, director of the State Museum of Historical past and Tradition of the Republic of Karakalpakstan; and modern poet Kydirniyaz Babaniyazov.
For Sabirbayev, bringing these voices collectively, and shining a highlight on the area, is a crucial step.
“As an artist, I used to be born and raised within the Republic of Karakalpakstan, so the issue of the Aral Sea is our downside and my ache. The summit drew me as a result of 70-80% of my works are associated to the Aral Sea and Karakalpakstan… I hope that the place there may be consideration, there will likely be outcomes,” he explains.
Crucially, the Aral Tradition Summit doesn’t search to be “simply one other convention”; fairly, it’s designed as an ongoing dialog, with contemporary iterations each 18 months and a dedication to longstanding legacy.
The primary part of the mission will concentrate on the regeneration of Istiqlol Park, the longer term headquarters of the summit. This former amusement park, which is among the solely inexperienced areas within the metropolis, will likely be reworked right into a group hub providing a variety of environmentally aware and culturally enriching experiences, serving for instance each of eco-responsible tourism and a mannequin for different cities grappling with related environmental challenges.
2025, a milestone yr
The Aral Tradition Summit is only one of quite a few massive cultural “moments” for Uzbekistan in 2025. In addition to taking part within the World Expo Osaka and the Venice Biennale Architettura, the nation will host its first ever biennial (the Bukhara Biennial) in September and, come November, the forty third session of the UNESCO Common Convention in Samarkand – an occasion that has not been held outdoors Paris in 40 years.
It stays to be seen whether or not tradition and ecology will unite to really make a distinction within the Aral Sea area, however one factor is for certain: as Uzbekistan opens its doorways to worldwide audiences, it has staked its declare – and that of Karakalpakstan, particularly – to a spot within the world cultural dialog.
The inaugural Aral Tradition Summit runs in Nukus from 5-6 April 2025.
