Astana Art Fair is an international contemporary art exhibition which was inaugurated on October 24 at the Congress Center, Astana, and presented over 200 works in the theme “Future Roots.” The fair was going on for three days, until the 26th of October, and it had artists and galleries in Central Asia, Russia, and China.
The theme of the current year has been on the birth of culture as a source of new creative drive and visions of the future to designate Astana as a center of local and international artistic discourse.
The fair took place with the support of the Astana akimat (city administration) and was organized by the Urpaq association as a long-term cultural project to empower the creative economy and increase the regional art market, as well as to involve youth in the artistic exchange of the global market.
Kazakhstan exhibitors were Futuristan Lab, TSE Art Destination, Occupy Steppe, Qazart.com, Keremet Art, Altyn Gasyr, and the Parsifal video art project.
The international participants included Bonum Factum and Andakulova Gallery of Uzbekistan, Bishkek School of Contemporary Art of the Kyrgyz Republic, Vysota Gallery, Sistema Gallery, and ES Gallery of Russia. In the exhibition, there was also a section under Independent Voices: Future Roots, established as the result of an open call to artists, with which emerging artists made a name in contemporary art.
The public program of the fair featured lectures by the experts of art, Valeria Ibraeva, Nelli Shivrina, Yuliya Sorokina, Assel Akhmetzhanova, Christianna Bonin, and Normurod Negmatov. The schedule included a workshop with Galina Kobzeva of the British Higher School of Art and Design, which was an experimental watercolor workshop, and a workshop with the Bishkek School of Contemporary Art, which was a zine-making workshop that emphasized self-expression in print media.
Public talks with artists and curators, including Anvar Musrepov, Ardak Mukanova, Mansur Smagambetov, Natalia Andakulova, Valentina Kuzina, Anastasia Volkova, and Albina Zakirullina, also took place in the event.
The organizers stated that the fair was meant to be inclusive and accessible to everyone visiting it, including those with limited mobility, people with hearing or visual impairment.
