‘TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East’ brings eleven women artists into conversation across Central and West Asia and their diasporas, challenging inherited ideas of the “East” through memory, mythology, displacement and resilience.
20 July 2026
Presented at the historic Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti in Venice, ‘TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East’ brings together eleven women artists whose practices span video, installation, sculpture, painting, textiles, sound and the spoken word. Through new and iconic works, Lida Abdul, Afruz Amighi, Huma Bhabha, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Mona Hatoum, Saodat Ismailova, Madina Joldybek, Nazira Karimi, Daria Kim, Farideh Lashai and Tala Madani address questions of existence, mythology, history and political upheaval. At its centre is Turandot, an enigmatic figure whose story has travelled across centuries, languages and artistic traditions, repeatedly reshaped through cultural exchange and reinterpretation. In conversation with ART AFRICA, curator Ziba Ardalan reflects on reclaiming the story’s Persian and Central Asian origins, the relationships that emerge among the artists, and the importance of creating greater visibility for artists from Central and West Asia.
Suzette Bell-Roberts: ‘TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East’ reclaims a figure reinterpreted through Western literary and operatic traditions. Why revisit the tale’s Persian and Central Asian origins, and how does the exhibition challenge narratives about the “East”?
Ziba Ardalan: The idea to stage the ‘TURANDOT: To the daughters of the East’ exhibition in Venice, a city renowned for bridging East and West, rests primarily on humanity’s love of culture, poetry, art, and the need for dialogue between cultures if our world is to grow in harmony. There is much to learn from the transformative story of Turandot, and I am grateful to have worked on it over the past couple of years. So let’s give the beginning of our enquiry a positive turn.
As a Collateral Event of the 61st Venice Biennale, the exhibition enters one of the world’s most influential platforms for contemporary art. What does this mean for artists from Central and West Asia, who have long been underrepresented in global art history?
Indeed, the exhibition has been viewed and written about beyond our expectations, which hopefully confirms its relevance. As you know, the eleven women artists whose works feature in this show are from different generations, with some of them more well-known than others. Remarkably, their different works support and highlight one another’s relevance and purpose. It has become a complex conversation in which every artist seems to benefit, and exhibiting at such an important venue has encouraged each artist to elevate their work and its message.
The exhibition brings together eleven women artists across generations, geographies and diasporas, with practices rooted in memory, displacement, mythology and resilience. What conversations emerged among them?
You are absolutely right about the much-storied past of this region. It may therefore be interesting to revisit some bygone events or at least to listen to local versions of them. During the past century, much of Central Asia has been off limits, firstly due to difficulties of travel and communication, and then, of course, political situations have not always favoured contact. In this sense, it is marvellous that we can now experience the work of so many of these artists and hear them speak through their art. And, thanks to the long run of the Venice Biennale, they have also been able to encounter one another’s works, and I am sure some great benefits will follow.
You have described Venice as the ideal place to present this exhibition because of its historic role as a meeting point between East and West. How does ‘TURANDOT’ invite audiences to rethink Venice not only as a European cultural centre, but as part of a longer history of exchange, migration and interconnected cultures?
I would say everyone who visits Venice will soon hear about Marco Polo, whose extensive explorations along the trade routes of the Silk Road lasted 24 years (1271–1295), during which he was not only dazzled by the riches and advancements of Asia, but also served the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and learned to speak perfect Persian, which was the lingua franca in the region for almost 1,000 years until the nineteenth century, when it was replaced by English. The great effect his expanded knowledge and experiences have had on Europe cannot be overemphasised. Visitors to Venice need only look at its architecture to see the influence of Eastern cultures. The Murano glass industry, now considered fundamentally Venetian, was a technique that Venetian glassmakers learned from artisans in Syria and Egypt, and place names such as the Arsenal (state shipyard) and Magazzino (warehouse) have come directly from Arabic. Of course, with time and the advances in Europe, language continues to change, and we don’t always remember to think back in time to the history contained in a word’s origin.
Many of the artists in the exhibition address war, exile, political upheaval and cultural erasure, while also creating works of remarkable beauty and poetic force. How did you balance these political realities with the exhibition’s emphasis on imagination, memory and artistic innovation?
All of that is why we should never give up on the essence of being human, nor ever stop investing in and encouraging young people to think and behave creatively, because creativity may well be humanity’s very last saviour. Many great works of art, music and literature have been created in response to human catastrophes. Just think of Picasso’s anti-war painting Guernica, 1937; The Lord of the Rings conceived by a fever-ridden J.R.R. Tolkien during the saddest moments of World War I; Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein; and Albert Camus’s 1947 La Peste (The Plague) set in the depths of World War II. Have you ever listened to John Williams’s heartbreaking Schindler’s List film music from 1993? There have also been instances when creative people have refused to leave their homes or countries in the midst of war or an enormous natural catastrophe. So, creating a great work of art, composing a poignant piece of music, or writing an emotionally powerful book seems to be much more about emotion than physical reality. All we need to do is recognise and support a person’s creative response to their unique and/or global situation.
Rather than presenting the region through a single cultural or political lens, ‘TURANDOT’ embraces the diversity of Central and West Asia and their diasporas. How important was it to resist simplified regional narratives for first-time audiences?
Everything about the lands of Turan, and indeed ‘TURANDOT‘’s persona, seems to be in a state of flux. In the past, Turan was quite porous, lacking clear boundaries. More often, it was the cities that held power or importance. This is why the region has, at different times, variably included up to eleven countries, not only the current five Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Since the exhibition refers to a broader geographical and cultural arena, I made sure to include artists from some of those other countries, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. The only artist in the exhibition who is not from the Turan region is Mona Hatoum, a British Palestinian artist from the Levant. Her inclusion and Hot Spot III, the specific work shown in this exhibition, were positive curatorial decisions. It gives the exhibition a sense of dialogue between the peoples of Turan and their neighbours. In the exhibition, this relationship works beautifully between Nazira Karimi’s Return Policy, where an installation of cement-dipped frocks is set against Hatoum’s large globe of Earth burning with red fluorescent light, as if seen from afar. I really like the dialogue and would never want to turn the Turan region into a time capsule, because history makes us conscious of the region’s porous nature.
This exhibition also marks the international relaunch of Parasol Unit, with a renewed commitment to bringing contemporary art to audiences around the world beyond a permanent gallery space. Why was ‘TURANDOT’ the right project for this new chapter, and how does it reflect your long-term vision for the foundation?
Again, as we all know, we live in a time when we have to be open and flexible because almost everything is in flux. Like you, I am curious to see how things will evolve. Our next exhibition is a two-part show that will open simultaneously in Athens on 25 September 2026. It explores the influence Greece has had on the oeuvre of Heidi Bucher, who spent the summers of 1960 and 1961 on the Island of Mykonos. The second part will put Bucher’s work in dialogue with four contemporary Greek women artists: Maro Fasouli, Ismini Samanidou, Kleopatra Tsalis, and Paky Vlassopoulou.
Looking beyond this year’s Biennale, what impact do you hope ‘TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East’ will have on the visibility of artists from Central and West Asia? Do you see this exhibition as part of a broader shift toward a more expansive and equitable global art discourse? What still needs to change for that shift to last?
Absolutely! We need more players at the international level, because this will be the reality in the years to come, but the shift to last will depend on these countries and their willingness to become part of the global discourse. Already, Uzbekistan has shown its willingness to be part of the conversation, and I understand that other Central Asian countries are becoming more active in this regard by opening their countries to tourism and inaugurating museums and art spaces – which is great news.
TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East is on view at the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti in Venice, Italy until 31 October 2026.
