New 🦚 Uzbekistan

Photo series, 2024-ongoing

New Uzbekistan is a mosaic of staged and documentary scenes made across Uzbekistan. I am interested in the ways contemporary Uzbekistan represents and imagines itself: how the state constructs its public image; how people present themselves online; and how ideas of love, family, masculinity, femininity and status are made visible. I am drawn to visual formulas that recur, moving between found situations and reconstructed scenes. 

The title references the ideological concept “Yangi O‘zbekiston” (“New Uzbekistan”), which has been central to the current government's narrative of national renewal and reform. Promoted since 2021, the concept projects an image of a democratic, prosperous and internationally recognised state, while meaningful political change often remains rhetorical. Rather than proposing another definitive image of the country, the project turns toward the many ways Uzbekistan is imagined and performed in everyday life. Here, the “new” does not replace the old: inherited rituals coexist with internet aesthetics, global pop culture and commercial imagery. The series captures old and contemporary tradition, real and imagined scenarios, and life on and offline. From Spider Man in the middle of prayer to male hairstyles as seen in Tashkent’s hair salons and an iron crafted Eiffel Tower, New Uzbekistan reflects on a contemporary landscape that is shaped by history, by western influence and society’s own self-image.