Sara Raza has been appointed as the first artistic director and chief curator of Uzbekistan’s Centre for Contemporary Art Tashkent (CCA), a restored 1912 tram depot that is currently undergoing expansion by French architecture firm Studio KO. Raza, who was born in London and grew up in New York, is a former curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and has curated festivals in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. She took up the post in January and has already launched a programme of artist residencies in refurbished traditional Uzbek mahallas, while the CCA’s reopening has been delayed from 2025 to 2026.
This appointment matters because it signals a shift in Uzbekistan’s cultural sector, where women are increasingly taking leadership roles despite the country’s patriarchal society. Raza’s background—including Uzbek ancestry and experience engaging diaspora communities at the South London Gallery—positions her to connect with Uzbekistan’s youth, who make up 60% of the population. Her work raises questions about artistic freedom in a country ranked 172nd out of 194 for civil liberties, but she argues that artists in Uzbekistan have always found subtle ways to address social issues.