
On January 29, the Goethe Institute-Tashkent hosted a presentation of the festival “48 hours Tashkent. RestArt ". This is a new format in the cultural life of Tashkent. Over the course of three days, it will bring together several art venues and figures from various forms of contemporary art. The idea is based on a large-scale event in the cultural life of Berlin - the 48h Neukölln Festival (48hNK), which has been held annually since 1999. Festival curators Gulnara Ishmuratova and Antonina Kadyrova noted that the Tashkent festival is oriented not towards traditional conventional expositions, but towards an immersive, participatory approach designed for the involvement and presence of the viewer, his interaction with artists and their works. The upcoming event will feature individual, group and curatorial projects, as well as performances, lectures, master classes. The upcoming festival is an analogue of "48 Hours of Neukölln", but adapted to the metropolitan city environment and designed for the participation of, first of all, local artists, in order to support and make their art more visible. Curators and participants from Berlin and Novosibirsk will also be invited to participate.
The general theme of the RestArt festival emphasizes the ambiguity of interpretation. This is also a direct translation from English as "renewal", "restart". That is, participants and spectators are invited to "restart" their vision, and maybe take a fresh look at contemporary art. Other meanings consist in direct translations of the words that make up its name: "rest + Art" - "rest + art". Weekends are often spent in the center of urban culture. At the end of the week, from Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, it will be possible to observe the modern cultural life of Tashkent and “relax in art”. Moving from one location to another, the viewer becomes an accomplice of the event, involved in the life of the city. Holding the festival in different locations in the format of a continuous event for 48 hours, as a kind of tour of the places where the viewer meets art, will provide an opportunity not only to get acquainted with the work of artists, but also to take a fresh look at familiar places through the prism of contemporary art.
The organization of the festival is carried out with the support of the Goethe Institute in Tashkent.