Saodat Ismailova. Paths of Light

Galerie de l’UQAM welcomes Saodat Ismailova. Paths of Light, an exhibition that provides insight into the ancestral traditions, rituals, myths, and post-Soviet heritage of Central Asia. The themes of memory, spirituality, immortality, and extinction play an essential role in her work, which is steeped in history and poetry.

The Exhibition

On the occasion of Uzbek filmmaker and artist Saodat Ismailova’s first exhibition in Canada, the public will discover five works reflecting the main themes and motifs that punctuate the approach of this artist whose career is in full expansion. Her recent recognition, reflected in major awards such as Art Basel’s Golden Award, as well as solo exhibitions and publications in prestigious European institutions such as the Pirelli Foundation in Milan and the Eye Museum in Amsterdam, has led Galerie de l’UQAM to showcase a body of work that has been unanimously celebrated in Europe and Asia.

According to the exhibition curator and director of Galerie de l’UQAM Louise Déry, viewing this work provides an opportunity to perceive “the historical, philosophical, migrational, and colonial dimensions of the infinitely complex culture of Uzbekistan by associating images of collective history with those of Ismailova’s personal experience of growing up in the post-Soviet era.” The artist also explores they explore the intersection between rituals, myths, and dreams and the connection between ancestral knowledge and family stories, especially those of several generations of women.

Ismailova combines images that she conceives and films in various magnificent sites and landscapes of Central Asia with other visual, textual, and filmic elements drawn from archives and the cinematographic heritage of her country. “The photographs, films, and video installations in the exhibition bear several characteristics that encourage a sensory experience of the works: the often hypnotic rhythm of the images, the spellbinding musical and sonic elements, the glimmering colours and lights, the sensual materiality of embroidery drawn from vernacular traditions. In turn, the characters and their murmurs, the illuminating poetry of the stories, the splendour of timeless landscapes, the evocation of water and wind, and the symbolism of terrestrial, lunar, and solar cycles leave us in a state of suspension. Everything contributes to creating thoughtful horizons imbued with a sense of vertigo, mystery, revelation, and beauty”, the curator explain.

The exhibition Saodat Ismailova. Paths of Light will provide means for continuing to examine notions of propaganda and power, political and mental turmoil, the ideals of individual and collective awareness, and the reversals of memory and time.

About the Artist

Saodat Ismailova is an Uzbek filmmaker and artist who lives and works between Paris and Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She is a graduate of the Tashkent State Academy of Fine Arts and Le Fresnoy—National Studio of Contemporary Art in Tourcoing, France. In 2021, she founded Davra, a research collective dedicated to the development of the Central Asian art scene. In recent years, she has participated in the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) and Documenta 15 (2022), and received the Eye Art & Film Award from the Eye Museum in Amsterdam, which was accompanied by a major solo exhibition (2023) and a first major publication entitled 18,000 Worlds. Several solo exhibitions have followed at Le Fresnoy—National Studio of Contemporary Art (2023), Hangar Biccoca in Milan (2024), Stuk Art Center in Leuven (2025), and Kunsthalle Lisbon (2025). In addition to the exhibition at Galerie de l’UQAM, other exhibitions are planned for 2026: As we fade, which continues at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (United Kingdom), and Amanat, at the Swiss Institute in New York. He has recently been awarded several prizes: the Pernod Ricard Foundation’s New Program, the Art Basel Golden Award, and the Han Nefkens Prize for a new commission produced in collaboration with the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Singapore Art Museum.

saodatismailova.com 

About the Curator

Louise Déry (Ph.D. in art history) has been director of Galerie de l’UQAM since 1997. Previously, she worked as a curator at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and was the director of the Musée de Rimouski. She has organized some 100 exhibitions and published as many publications in Canada and abroad devoted to David Altmejd, Rober Racine, Nancy Spero, Dominique Blain, Sarkis, Françoise Sullivan, Michael Snow, Jean-Luc Nancy, Enrique Ramírez, and Emmanuelle Léonard, to name but a few. She has received several awards and distinctions, including the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award of Excellence for Curating Contemporary Art (2007), the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2015), the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France (2017), the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec (2021), and the Ordre national du Québec (2023).