Firouz Farmanfarmaian represents Kyrgyzstan for nation’s first-ever pavilion
The Iranian-born French national is presenting “Gates of Turan,” an exhibition curated by Janet Rady on the island of the Giudecca for the Kyrgyz Republic’s first-ever national pavilion in Venice.
The exhibition looks at the shared tribal heritage of the Turanian nomads of Kyrgyz, an Iranian tribe of the Avestan age (circa 4-6 century AD), who occupied “the land of Tur,” a historic region encompassing present-day Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and northern parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Through the works on show, which features 10 hand-stitched, hand-felted Shirdaks designed by the artist to represent the tribal banners of the 10 nomadic communities of ancient Turan, Farmanfarmaian delves into the tribal identity of modern-day Kyrgyz and its shared tribal ancestry.