curating an apexart exhibition at Savitsky Museum
we used to be seaweed
13 February 2025 - 13 March 2025
The project
An apexart group exhibition is bringing together contemporary artists whose works address the ecological, cultural, and historical transformations of the Aral Sea region.
The venue
The Savitsky Museum (Nukus, Uzbekistan) holds the world's second most significant Soviet avant-garde collection, including remarkable Turkestan avant-garde paintings that reflect the influence of the region's dazzling light and colors on 20th-century art.
The museum’s location in one of Central Asia’s most remote regions adds to its identity, offering a rare cultural experience that connects modernist art with the landscapes and history of the Aral Sea region.
The Aral sea
We Used to Be Seaweed examines the legacy of the Soviet effort to reshape nature, using the Aral Sea as an example of both ambitious progress and its lasting consequences.
The Aral Sea is an inland waterbody located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, fed by two rivers whose basins span seven countries. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, it has drastically shrunk since the 1960s due to Soviet irrigation projects.
a vanishing sea, a biodiverse habitat, a toxic wasteland, a processual disaster, a new environmental reality, a symbol of Soviet exploitation,
a geopolitical battleground,a case study in adaptation,
a global environment lesson, a nourisher,
a symbol of depletion,
a tourist potential
Under construction:
press kit, curator's essay, works in progress
Photo: still from 'Aral. Fishing in an Invisible Sea'
courtesy of Saodat Ismailova
Photo: documentation of the work by Alexander Ugay
courtesy of Alexander Ugay
Photo: work in progress
courtesy of the2vvo
Photo: tactile model fragment for Savitsky musem
Lilia Bakanova