Saodat Ismailova: Amanat

Swiss Institute (SI) is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the United States by Uzbek artist and filmmaker Saodat Ismailova. Ismailova's films and installations unfold along the fault lines of Central Asian landscapes steeped in ritual and myth, shifting borders and migration, and the invisible forces of empire shaping the psycho-material terrains of the present. The exhibition revolves around the world premiere of the first iteration of Ismailova's newly commissioned film Amanat (2026), whose title references that which is entrusted in one's care, and denotes a sacred responsibility that demands to be honored, protected, and passed on. The film marks the concluding chapter of Ismailova's long-term engagement with Arslanbob, a vast walnut forest in present-day Kyrgyzstan, revered for centuries as a spiritual site. Through the prism of its cosmologies and ecologies, Amanat considers how memory is metabolized in moments of profound cultural and political change, asking what becomes (un)speakable when the very conditions of belief come under pressure.