BIENNALE | Repices for Broken Hearts, 1. Bukhara Biennial, Bukhara

Hera Büyüktaşcıyan’s work in collaboration with Uzbek artisan and musician Islom Khudoyberdiev can be viewed as part of the 1. Bukhara Biennial titled “Recipes for Broken Hearts”, curated by Diana Campbell, until November 20, 2025.

Hera Büyüktaşcıyan investigates the material and symbolic role of mulberry trees in instrument making, and her personal history, extending her ongoing research into sound, materiality, and transformation. Centred on three fragmented heart forms in homage to once-living beings (cow and fish and silkworms) whose bodies and skins are used as material components in traditional Uzbek instruments, the installation features suspended, unfinished mulberry-wood instruments created in collaboration with Islom Khudoyberdiev. Together they developed a sound piece that evokes the acoustic essence of a heartbeat allowing us to sense the sorrow embedded in the act of creating joy. In the words of the artist, “coming to this land of mulberry trees, resonated with cycles of sacrifice, skin-changing and coexistence. Reminiscing of my great grandmother, a silkworm farmer from Bardizag*, I wanted to look at the mulberry tree as a vessel through musical instruments carved through its body. Like wooden hearts echoing the human touch, ancestral knowledge and threads of production - Forming a bursting spring adorned by mulberry barks from the remains of the carved instruments, retracing the erased gardens of Bardizag that appear as a forgotten score while meandering throughout the rooms. Vocalising distant heartbeats of a cow, a fish and a silkworm – ancient heartbreaks.”

*Today named Bahçecik in the Adapazarı Province, Turkey; once a thriving region known for agriculture, sericulture, and silk production, mainly populated by the Armenian, Greek and Levantine communities. 

The artwork is commissioned by ACDF.