It might sound and look like an odd juxtaposition: chef-nun Jeong Kwan, of Netflix documentary series Chef\u2019s Table<\/em> fame, unearthing kimchi she has been fermenting for 10 weeks next to a new installation by British sculptor Antony Gormley.<\/p>\n Yet, set in Bukhara\u2019s 16th century Khoja Kalon Mosque, the two made perfect sense as collaborative highlights of the closing ceremony of the inaugural Bukhara Biennial, which ran from September 5 to November 23 last year.<\/p>\n A contemporary art festival, the Bukhara Biennial was conceived by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) and forms part of a broader plan to revitalise Uzbekistan\u2019s living heritage as well as establish a permanent cultural district in the historic city. Its first theme, \u201cRecipes for Broken Hearts\u201d, was inspired by Uzbekistan\u2019s national dish, plov. A hearty meal of rice layered with meat, spices and vegetables, the ideas of healing and restoration imbued in plov were the conceptual crux of the gastronomy, art, craft, architecture, music and performance on display.<\/p>\n Gormley\u2019s Close<\/em> (2025) \u2013 created from mud bricks with Uzbek artist Temur Jumaev \u2013 channelled the theme by exploring vulnerability, communal recovery and a reconnection to ancestral roots. Jeong Kwan\u2019s kimchi was woven into a collaborative culinary performance with Indian artist Subodh Gupta. Blending Korean temple food with Bihari fare, the hybrid meal was served inside Gupta\u2019s pavilion-like installation, Salt Carried With the Wind<\/em> (2024-25), situated outside the Ayozjon Caravanserai, one of four in an interconnected complex, on a site once occupied by Bukhara\u2019s spice market.<\/p>\n All through the event, the locations were significant, as the Bukhara Biennial was designed to house site-specific installations, soundscapes and performances not in purpose-built, white-cube galleries, but in restored or adapted caravanserais (merchant inns), madrasas (educational institutions), trading domes and mosques. While fellow Silk Road stopover Samarkand and the national capital, Tashkent, are undergoing their own cultural transformations, this preservation-first approach is what sets Bukhara apart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It might sound and look like an odd juxtaposition: chef-nun Jeong Kwan, of Netflix documentary series Chef\u2019s Table fame, unearthing kimchi she has been fermenting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4840],"tags":[30414,19601,30413,540,7812,30415,24641,16104],"class_list":["post-86883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-globetrotting","tag-biennial","tag-blossoming","tag-bukhara","tag-city","tag-cultural","tag-spearheads","tag-uzbekistan","tag-wider","wpcat-4840-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Antony](\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/09\/14\/76da9fc0-ff91-4329-979a-ae23be09dd93_741ac6ff.jpg\" "\\"Antony")
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