Unravelling the Silk Road
“Unravelling the Silk Road” (2025-26) is a pioneering Anglo-Uzbek collaboration between British BioArtist Anna Dumitriu and Uzbek museum director and curator Shirin Tashova supported by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture Programme. The project explores rich medical history and current healthcare and environmental challenges and innovations in both Uzbekistan and the UK, bridging historical narratives around figures like Avicenna (who completed a significant medical encyclopaedia “The Canon of Medicine” in the year 1025 and was born in what is now Uzbekistan) and contemporary issues such as the ongoing stigma of tuberculosis, soil health, and the environment. Artworks in the exhibition incorporate a range of media including 3D printed forms, natural dyes, anatomical wax, recycled medical waste, salt and plants.
Dumitriu undertook a hybrid residency (online and in-person) including an intensive physical residency in Uzbekistan, and created a new body of artworks working with locally sourced materials such as silk, gold leaf, local plants, and natural dyes, as well as sculptural materials and biomedia. The project fostered co-creation methodologies, and enabled the development of new artworks informed by local perspectives, materials, and histories.
The project created a dialogue between UK and Uzbek artists and arts professionals, patients, medics and scientists, facilitating hands-on workshops, networking, mentoring, and professional development sessions (for Uzbek artists and scientists interested in working across art and science).
The collaboration culminated in a solo exhibition of new works at CAMUZ – The Contemporary Art Museum of Uzbekistan in Urgench, curated by museum director Shirin Tashova. This exhibition encompasses new works created through the residency alongside existing digital works. In person and online streamed talks by Dumitriu and and other participants will further disseminate learning and stimulate discussion. Works from the exhibition will be accessioned to the collection of CAMUZ – The Contemporary Art Museum of Uzbekistan.
“Unravelling the Silk Road” aims to create lasting artistic partnerships, offer unique forms of engagement and critical reflections on health and cultural heritage between the two nations.
Experiments were made using undyed Uzbek pure Margilan silk and natural dye plants that were used by Avicenna to treat various diseases, such as madder root. Avicenna believed that dyes had the ability to enter bodily tissue and treat disease (a concept later developed by Paul Ehrlich), for example how the colour of madder root can be excreted through urine (in the same way Rifampicin is nowadays). He also used roasted or burnt silk to make electuaries (sweet pastes) or troches (medicinal lozenges) treat respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis, combining them with pearls, gold, silver, amber, starch, gum arabic, and milk. The project research also connects to contemporary work to improve soil quality and reduce salinity through the growth of indigo plants.
Exhibition
Materia Medica: A solo exhibition of BioArt by Anna Dumitriu is on show at CAMUZ – The Contemporary Art Museum of Uzbekistan in Urgench, Uzbekistan, from 3rd April until 2nd June 2026.
