‘Recipes for Broken Hearts’ featuring Dana Awartani at Bukhara Biennale, Uzbekistan

28 August 2025

From 5 September – 20 November, The Bukhara Biennial presents Recipes for Broken Hearts featuring Dana Awartani, who is amongst over 70 participants to date all developing new projects for the debut edition. The site-specific, interdisciplinary gathering will take the form of an expanded multi-sensory feast, marking one of Central Asia’s largest and most diverse cultural initiatives to date.

Recipes for Broken Hearts departs from a local legend in which polymath and father of modern medicine Ibn Sina invented the recipe of the staple Uzbek dish, palov, to cure a prince’s sickness caused by an impossible love for the daughter of a craftsman. Referencing this story of healing and recovery, the biennial explores the body physically, emotionally, and spiritually, encouraging communal participation and experiential response.

The event will showcase collaborations between artists and artisans. Connecting both internationally acclaimed and emerging artists, several of whom will be making their institutional debut, with some of Uzbekistan’s most masterful craftspeople, the biennial references Uzbekistan as a locus for transregional cultural practices, and reflects on Bukhara’s history as an intellectual and economic centre along the Silk Roads.

Dana Awartani engages in critical and contemporary reinterpretations of the forms, techniques, concepts and spatial constructs that shape Middle Eastern culture. Steeped in a multitude of historical references, especially Islamic and Arab art-making traditions, Awartani’s practice straddles continuity and innovation, aesthetic experimentation and social relevance.

Find out more via Biennial Foundation.

Image: Portrait of Dana Awartani, Courtesy of the Artist and Ali Alsumaiyn