Kulapat Yantrasast, the architect behind major museum projects for institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre, has been named artistic director of the 2027 Bukhara Biennial in Uzbekistan.
The appointment comes less than a year after the debut edition of the biennial, which drew an estimated 1.8 million visitors and quickly became one of the most talked-about events on the international art calendar. Conceived and commissioned by Gayane Umerova and the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), the next edition will run from September 3 through November 21, 2027.
For much of last fall, it was difficult to walk through Chelsea or Tribeca without running into someone who had just come back from Bukhara. Collectors, curators, museum directors, artists, and journalists from Los Angeles to London to Hong Kong descended on the ancient Silk Road city for the inaugural edition, helping turn what had once been an unlikely destination for the international art crowd into one of the season’s must-see events.
Yantrasast succeeds Diana Campbell, artistic director of the Samdani Art Foundation in Bangladesh, who served as artistic director of the inaugural edition “Recipes for Broken Hearts.” That exhibition brought together more than 70 projects by international artists and Uzbek artisans across Bukhara’s historic center, turning the city into a platform for cultural exchange and collaboration.
While best known as the founder and creative director of WHY Architecture, Yantrasast has increasingly moved between architecture, exhibition-making, and cultural programming. His recent projects include the redesign of the Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which reopened last year, and new cultural institutions in Bangkok and Riyadh.
For Yantrasast, part of Bukhara’s appeal lies in its history as a Silk Road city where cultures, religions, and ideas mixed for centuries. But he said the next edition should be judged by more than the number of collectors and curators it attracts. “I want the art and the festival representation to have something to do with the people,” he told ARTnews in a recent interview. “This should not be just the art world landing on it for 10 weeks and after that it becomes something else.”
Yantrasast said the 2027 edition will continue the biennial’s model of producing work in Uzbekistan through collaborations between international artists and local artisans. But he also plans to expand those conversations to include ecologists, scientists, anthropologists, and community groups.
“I’m interested in artists who are engaged, who will work to build something together with the community,” he said. He added that issues such as water shortages, air quality, and biodiversity are among the subjects that interest him as he begins developing the exhibition.
The 2027 edition will also expand into additional sites across Bukhara, including newly restored historic buildings, public squares, and spaces that have not previously been open to visitors.
Umerova, who has overseen a rapid expansion of Uzbekistan’s cultural ambitions in recent years, said Yantrasast was a natural choice to guide the biennial’s next chapter. “Kulapat Yantrasast’s appointment as Artistic Director comes after the remarkable success of the first Bukhara Biennial,” she said. “Bukhara has long been a crossroads of ideas, creativity, history, and knowledge, and the Biennial has helped renew the city’s role as a center of cultural and intellectual exchange for a global audience, while inspiring a new generation of Uzbek citizens.”
She added that Yantrasast’s ability to connect architecture, craftsmanship, scholarship, ecology, and artistic practice would help shape the biennial’s future while leaving “a beautiful legacy for Bukhara, its citizens, and all those who choose to experience what the Biennial has to offer.”
That broader vision has become a hallmark of Umerova’s cultural strategy for Uzbekistan. Beyond the biennial, she has overseen projects ranging from the forthcoming Center for Contemporary Arts in Tashkent and a new national museum designed by Tadao Ando to Uzbekistan’s participation at the Venice Biennale and major exhibitions abroad. Under her leadership, the country has become an increasingly visible player in the international cultural landscape.
The curatorial theme for the 2027 edition has not yet been announced. More details are expected later this year.
