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Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan recently opened the exhibition A Seed Under Our Tongue, which presents more than two decades of work by the celebrated artist Saodat Ismailova. The exhibition includes films, sculptures, textiles and installations in a specially-designed spatial environment. This is the first institutional survey for Ismailova in Italy.

The exhibition consists of fourteen works, some of which have been commissioned by HangarBicocca for the show. All of the works are thematically linked to the concepts of transmission and transformation, which Ismailova approaches with a sensitivity towards the problems that arise from these two phenomena, especially as it pertains to the generational transmission of oral narratives. A comprehensive monograph on Ismailova, edited by exhibition curator Roberta Tenconi, is set to be published in the autumn.

Saodat Ismailova, Chillahona, 2022. Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2024. Embroidery by Madina Kasimbaeva. Courtesy of the artist © Saodat Ismailova and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo: Agostino Osio.

Inspired by the legend of Arslanbob, Ismailova's new film of the same name (2023-2024) follows the path of a date seed hidden under the tongue of a mythical figure which is “passed down” until it reaches the most important mystic in Central Asia in the form of a walnut - who proceeds to plant a whole walnut forest near the eponymous village in Kyrgyzstan. In the film Stains of the Oxus (2016), Ismailova gathers the dreams of people living along the Amu Darya river and contrasts them with the transformation that the river underwent during Soviet rule.

Many of the film works in the exhibition are juxtaposed with either a sculpture or a textile. In Chillahona (2022), a three-channel video installation is paired with a large tapestry that transposes elements of the film onto the fabric, freezing the moving image in time. This piece is a modern reinterpretation of the Uzbek “cosmological” embroidery known as falak. Together they address the sense of disorder that descended on the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A Seed Under Our Tongue is open through January 12, 2025. For more information about this exhibition and other events at Pirelli HangarBicocca visit their site.

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