Project Summary

At March Meeting 2011 Leeza Ahmady discussed her belief that artist communities in Central Asia have been isolated from other parts of Asia and the Middle East. Ahmady’s aim is to introduce further avenues for collaboration with the Middle East and to inspire engagement and support for artistic exchange with Central Asia. Her research (The Taste of Others), which already forms part of the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, will expand to become part of a larger online archive. Soviet era persecution, which meant that many artists in Central Asia produced much of their work in secret, along with improper care in state museums, has put much contemporary art in the region in danger of disappearance. Ahmady aims to increase knowledge of and access to the region’s artistic production. Moreover, she aims to establish an artist residency exchange between Central Asia, the Middle East and other parts if the world.

Presentation Proposal

Leeza Ahmady’s project The Taste of Others, which was first launched in 2005, is an ongoing curatorial, educational and archival initiative to connect the artists and art practitioners of Central Asia (Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) to artists and art professionals in other parts of the world. The project has been presented in a variety of formats (exhibitions, lectures, panels, screenings, interviews, articles, essays) at numerous venues in the US and abroad. For far too long artist communities in this area have been isolated. Thus, Ahmady’s central focus has been to create visibility, interaction and knowledge about the region’s aesthetic and intellectual discourses (past and present). Over the next three years, in collaboration with a team of artists and professionals, The Taste of Others archives will merge to become part of a larger online-based archive currently taking shape. The Central Asia Art Archive is aimed at the digital documentation and preservation of art historical texts, photography, video, sound and media works, performance/artistic acts and more. The archive will offer both local and international audiences access to modern and contemporary art practices in Central Asia.

Speaker

Leeza Ahmady (b. Afghanistan) is an independent art curator and educator based in New York. She is a founding member of a number of non-profit organisations in the US and Central Asia, such as the Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan (CCAA). She directs Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), a biennial event initiated by the Asia Society, New York, comprising a series of special exhibitions, lectures, and performances at leading city museums and galleries such as the Guggenheim Museum and MoMA. Ahmady’s recent exhibitions include: Parable of the Garden: New Media Art from Iran and Central Asia, New Jersey Art Gallery, Ewing (2008); I Dream of the Stans, Winkleman Gallery, New York and MARTE–Museo de Arte de El Salvador (2008); Tarjama / Translation, Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, NY (2009) and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2010). Ahmady is a member of the Curatorial Team/Agents for Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012).

December 2011

Subjects: