Saodat Ismailova exhibition

Saodat Ismailova: Melted into the Sun is the first major solo museum presentation in the United States dedicated to the Uzbek-born film and installation artist. The exhibition brings together recent works that explore Central Asia’s deep traditions, oral histories, and landscapes, moving from the banks of the Amu Darya River to ancient ruins and Soviet-era power stations. Ismailova’s practice draws on ancient Iranian and Islamic philosophies, as well as her own family stories, to examine the region’s complex modern history. The museum’s own collection of nineteenth-century Uzbek ikats (fabric wall hangings) is displayed alongside her works, creating a dialogue between historical craftsmanship and contemporary art that evokes a vivid sense of place and cultural resilience. Her films and installations weave together text, archival footage, and original camera work to create a space between dream and reality, reflecting on cyclical time, human impact on the environment, and the role of memory in understanding our place in an unstable world. The exhibition’s title is drawn from a line by the poet Jontemir Jondor.

Name: Saodat Ismailova: Melted into the Sun
Venue: National Museum of Asian Art, East Building, Gallery 28
Dates: June 13 through November 29, 2026
Collection Areas: Arts of the Islamic World and Contemporary Art
Price: Free admission
Exhibition Overview: The presentation includes film installations, video works, and objects from the museum’s collection of nineteenth-century Uzbek ikats. A central work is a film titled *Melted into the Sun*, which follows a veiled figure (alluding to the 8th-century leader al-Muqanna) through desert landscapes, forests, and industrial sites, accompanied by poetic subtitles that question perception, power, and the nature of time. The film incorporates imagery of rivers, dams, mirrors, and fire, blending allegory with documentary footage of Central Asian environments and infrastructure.
Accessibility: The museum provides exhibition text from all walls and cases in an accessible format that can be resized or read by screen readers. Descriptive transcripts of the film *Melted into the Sun* are also available, offering detailed visual and auditory descriptions for visitors who are blind or have low vision.
Note: The exhibition is located within the East Building complex of the National Museum of Asian Art, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution.