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Saodat Ismailova is a SAVA Creative Fellow, from October 2024 September 2025.
Saodat Ismailova is an Uzbek filmmaker and artist who graduated from Tashkent State Art Institute and Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts. Interweaving myths, rituality, and dreams within the tapestry of everyday life, her films investigate the historically complex and layered culture of Central Asia which stand at the crossroads of diverse material histories and migratory legacies. Departing from her personal history marked by growing up in the post-Soviet Uzbekistan, Ismailova reaches out to the collective dimension of memory. Her research encompasses the region’s ancestral knowledge and traditional spiritual practices as well as modern history of Uzbekistan which manifests through work on archival footage. She initiated Davra research collective in Central Asia, 2021. In 2022 she participated in 59th Biennale of Venice and presented new work at documenta fifteen. The same year, she received The Eye Art & Film Prize, Amsterdam. Her new film “Melted into the Sun” is presented at Nebula collective exhibition, commissioned by Fondazione in between Art and Film, during Venice Biennale of Arts, 2024. Her works are in the collection of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Centre of Pompidou, Paris and others.
In the framework of her research as SAVA Creative Fellow (2024-5) she will be exploring nuclear legacies left by the Soviet era in Central Asia, and their consequences for the ecosystem of the region.
