05/26/2026
Where is our place in an unstable world?
Central Asia’s enduring traditions, histories, and landscapes weave together in Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art’s upcoming exhibition featuring film and installation artist Saodat Ismailova.
Born in Uzbekistan, she draws from the country’s rich film archives, her own family stories, and the layered cultural histories of the region from the ancient Iranian, Turkic, and Islamic to the modern Soviet past. The images here come from “Melted into the Sun,” which reimagines the legend of al-Muqanna (“The Veiled One)” for the present day.
In the 8th century, al-Muqanna declared himself an incarnation of the divine and radiant like the sun. For centuries, he has been presented variously as a revolutionary or a charlatan.
Of him, she writes, “I was working with a character who left behind an uncertain and contradictory legacy—there is nothing concrete written about him. His story exists like an echo upon an echo, reverberating through time.”
This work is just one example of how Ismailova uses film to create a space between illusion and reality, past and present, raising questions about time, memory, and the human relationship to nature.
Experience it when "Saodat Ismailova: Melted into the Sun” opens at the National Museum of Asian Art on June 13, 2026: https://s.si.edu/4wDIsgy
Part of the collection.
Images: Melted into the Sun, 2024, Courtesy . Commissioned by Fondazione In Between Art Film and Batalha Centro de Cinema Porto
