Contesting convention: agency in Dushanbe’s contemporary art scene

This article examines artistic intervention into local conventions as a means of eliciting social awareness within the current cultural space of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, in which self-censorship is commonplace. As is to be expected, the art receiving the greatest support is sponsored by the authoritarian regime, who use it as a soft tool to construct a desired or prescribed form of national identity and to project state symbols into the global arena. In contrast, artworks which are contentious in their subject matter are mainly supported through international agencies. I explore the agency and autonomy of contemporary art, notwithstanding continuing state efforts at controlling, co-opting and incorporating art into a nationalist and legitimizing narrative. By focusing on selected artworks shown in Dushanbe within the last decade, where there are only a handful of artists work in this genre, I investigate how they unpack current societal issues of women’s rights, shifting ideologies, Islamization and civic duty.