Asia Art Archive (AAA) and Para Site are delighted to announce the twelve recipients of the Unconditional Trust: Impact Grant for Central Asia, generously supported by Ms Virginia Yee, with additional support from Octone Foundation:
Artcom Platform (Kazakhstan), Astral Nomads Heritage (Kazakhstan), BiSCA (Kyrgyzstan), DAVRA (Uzbekistan), Kyzyl Tractor (Kazakhstan), Makan Art Community (Kazakhstan), NOMSIZ (Uzbekistan), Qizlar (Uzbekistan), Ruyò (Tajiskitan), Sitora (Uzbekistan), Studio MUSEUM (Kyrgyzstan), and Zamanbap Art Collective (Kyrgyzstan).
In total, USD $80,000 has been distributed to the twelve groups based on the project proposals they have submitted through an open call.
Following the first edition of Unconditional Trust: Indonesia, where the grant supported eight artists and collectives from Indonesia, this edition of Unconditional Trust continues to expand our perspectives on community-building and positive structural change within the field of visual art. Through collaborations with the Central Asian art community, AAA and Para Site contribute to the development of local art ecologies and create long-term engagements that bring Central Asian practitioners in relation to peers in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region.
The grant recipients were shortlisted by a jury panel consisting of Alima Kairat (Artistic Director, Tselinny Centre of Contemporary Culture, Kazakhstan), Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev (Artists, Kyrgyzstan), Furqat Palvan-Zade (Artist and Writer, Uzbekistan), and Weiwei Wang (Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, CHAT, Hong Kong).
Image : Artcom Platform team. Courtesy of the collective.
Artcom Platform is a women-led grassroots collective of artists, researchers, and curators based in Kazakhstan. Their work connects contemporary art, nomadic knowledge, collective memory, public engagement, and environmental and climate justice through feminist, decolonial, and community-based practices rooted in the steppe and lake ecologies of Central Asia. Their project, Balkhash Anarchive, grows out of their long-term initiative Care for Balkhash and develops a community-based archive of the ecosystems, memories, and cultural life of the Lake Balkhash basin as a hydrosocial space. Through artistic research, oral histories, local knowledge, and public programming, they build a living platform for knowledge sharing, intergenerational transmission, and ecological solidarity.
Images: Astral Nomads Heritage group. Courtesy of the collective.
Astral Nomads Heritage: Saving Invisible History of Contemporary Art of Central Asia by Archiving is a multi-phase project presented by the Asia Art+ Public Foundation, led by Yuliya Sorokina (Almaty), Ulan Dzhaparov (Bishkek), Alexey Ulko (Tashkent), and Alexey Rumyantcev (Dushanbe). The project seeks to put together a quadrology publication consisting of marginal texts of Central Asian artists, diaries and interviews of Central Asian artists, an anthology of art history/critical texts, and artistic research in the form of comic novels. The publications will be published online on the Astral Nomads website.
Image: BiSCA team. Courtesy of the collective.
Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA), founded in 2020, is a self-organised collective promoting contemporary art in Kyrgyzstan through exhibitions, research, education, residencies, and publishing initiatives. Since 2023, BiSCA has operated Bulbul Art-Residence, the only space in Bishkek that hosts local and international artists through residencies, workshops, and public programmes. With the grant, BiSCA aims to transform Bulbul into a year-round platform by improving the building’s insulation, enabling the residency to evolve from a seasonal initiative into a continuous site of artistic production, exchange, and public engagement.
Images: DAVRA Research Collective. Courtesy the collective.
DAVRA Research Collective was founded in 2021 by Saodat Ismailova to connect and develop the Central Asian art scene through research, public programming, commissions, and publishing. Their work spans essay films, collective installations, educational labs, and film and sound archives, which are all essential to supporting emerging voices from the region. They have presented at documenta fifteen, Centre Pompidou, Eye Filmmuseum, and the Biennale Matter of Art in Prague, with works in the collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. Their current project aims to invest in DAVRA’s long-term organisational capacity by developing a comprehensive digital platform and institutional archive to preserve and circulate the critical work that independent, artist-led initiatives in the region generate but too often cannot sustain.
Images: Kyzyl Tractor and researchers. Courtesy of the collective.
Kyzyl Tractor is an art collective whose history extends beyond a record of objects and exhibitions, tracing a radical aesthetic and psychological shift born at the intersection of the Soviet collapse and the resurgence of nomadic cosmologies. The proposed survey publication, the first of its kind, will weave together thirty years of performances, paintings, philosophical manifestos, and oral histories, describing the works in detail while situating them within their sociopolitical context. The publication will serve as the definitive resource on the collective and lay the groundwork for future scholarship on one of Kazakhstan’s most formative artistic groups. The volume is researched and written by curator Maryamgul Yesken and performance studies scholar Anel Rakhimzhanova.
Image: Makan Art Community. Courtesy of the collective.
Makan Art Community is an independent, self-organised collective of young members of the Uyghur diaspora, founded in Almaty in 2023. Through artistic practice, research, and work with memory, the collective is dedicated to preserving and rethinking the cultural heritage of Uyghurs in Central Asia. The community is currently focused on the legacy of Uyghur artists from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan associated with the Miñ Oy (“A Thousand Thoughts”) gallery, which existed in Almaty from 1992 to 2002. The grant will support archival research, the digitisation and cataloguing of materials in artists’ studios and family collections, and the development of a dummy publication on the gallery’s history and participants.
Image: NOMSIZ organising team. Courtesy of the collective.
NOMSIZ (“without a name” in Uzbek) is an independent festival of experimental and documentary cinema based in Tashkent, focused on unconventional and artist-driven approaches to the moving image. It is organised by a collective of independent curators and cultural workers, jointly with 139 Documentary Center. The initiative emerged within a fragmented regional context, where artists, collectives, and small-scale initiatives often work in parallel but have limited opportunities to meet, share, or collaborate. The 2026 edition of the film festival aims at strengthening connections between independent initiatives, archives, and artists, while expanding dialogue with other institutions in Asia.
Image: Qizlar team. Courtesy of the collective.
Qizlar is a grassroots feminist collective based in Uzbekistan, working across culture, education, technology, and community organising. With support from Unconditional Trust, Qizlar will develop a new website and online archive to preserve and connect forms of feminist knowledge that often remain fragmented, informal, or at risk of disappearance. Bringing together texts, podcasts, visual materials, and documentation from its wider network, the platform supports access to locally grounded knowledge. The project also includes a publication reflecting on collective memory, ongoing cultural work, and the relationships built through Qizlar’s initiatives over the past years.
Image: Ruyò team. Courtesy of the collective.
Ruyò is an artist-run publishing platform founded in 2022. Through multilingual publications in Tajik and English, educational programmes, and collaborations, the group supports knowledge production from Central Asia on their own terms. The idea for Ruyò’s proposed project, Ruyò Issue 03: Borders/Hudud, was first seeded during the group’s visit to the Wakhan Corridor in 2024, a borderland in the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region. What began as a geographical encounter evolved into broader reflections: What is a border? Who determines its location? And how does nature become entangled in imperial contests when a river is turned into a line of division? As borders are increasingly enforced and violated, the issue reconsiders them as sites of violence and restriction, but also as crossings and spaces of transformation.
Image: Sitora Collective. Courtesy of the collective.
Sitora is an independent Bukhara-based collective and arts centre. Active under various names since 1985, Sitora holds one of Uzbekistan’s few independent photographic and film archives, documenting regional history and everyday life through the dedication of its diverse members. With support from Unconditional Trust, Sitora is launching a pilot residency programme in spring 2027. One Central Asian artist, selected via an open call, will engage with Sitora’s 1988 archival film Krik Vekov (The Cry of the Ages) to explore shifting narratives of preservation, authenticity, and cultural value in Bukhara, transforming the archive into a living resource for contemporary artistic production.
Image: Studio MUSEUM team. Courtesy of the collective.
Since 2003, the Studio MUSEUM team has organised the Bishkek April Fools’ Day Competitions. It is a unique annual art event that brings together artists from all over Central Asia, forming an important chapter in the region’s contemporary art history. The competitions have been organised in collaboration with friends and partners, including the Tumar Art Group, Theater 705, and other artistic communities and colleagues. Over the years, a great deal of information and material has been collected regarding the 1 April contest. The grant will support the organisation, archiving, design, and publication of these important documents.
Image: Zamanbap Art Collective. Courtesy of the collective.
Zamanbap Art Collective was formed in Bishkek in 2022, in the kitchen of artist Chyngyz Aidarov. At that time, he survived a serious stroke, and the idea was to keep him, and the group, involved in contemporary art. Aidarov passed away in December 2025. With the support of Unconditional Trust, Zamanbap Art Collective will create Radiooooo, an open platform that preserves and disseminates the archive of Chyngyz Aidarov in the context of local contemporary art. The goal is not only to question the process of archiving itself, but also to keep Aidarov’s memory and works alive and moving in the art world.
About Unconditional Trust
Unconditional Trust is a grant-making initiative administered by Asia Art Archive and Para Site, Hong Kong, generously supported by Ms Virginia Yee. Originally conceived as the NoExit Grant for Unpaid Artistic Labour, the grant first responded to the COVID-19 crisis by awarding unrestricted grants to artists dependent on in-person exchanges, events, and projects for their livelihoods. The grant has since evolved to address wider issues of development and sustainability within arts ecosystems. In 2023, it was renamed Unconditional Trust, with Unconditional Trust: Indonesia becoming its first full-fledged iteration that awarded a total of eight grants to artists and collectives from Indonesia. This edition, Unconditional Trust: Impact Grant for Central Asia, is bolstered by additional support from Octone Foundation, allowing the grant to support more initiatives from the region.
Unconditional Trust: Impact Grant for Central Asia has been developed by Susanna Chung, Christopher K. Ho, Junni Chen, and Nick Yu.
About Asia Art Archive
Asia Art Archive is an independent non-profit organisation co-founded by Claire Hsu and Johnson Chang in 2000 in response to the urgent need to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region.
With one of the most valuable growing collections of material on the recent history of art from Asia, freely available from our website and onsite library, AAA builds tools and communities to collectively expand knowledge through research, residency, educational programmes, and publications.
About Para Site
Para Site champions original developments in contemporary art by centering artistic voices and innovations. Collaborating closely with practitioners from both local and international contexts, Para Site enables new works, initiatives, and ideas to come into being. Placing an emphasis on inclusiveness and independent thought, Para Site has developed a strong reputation for giving milestone opportunities to a myriad of artists and curators, many of whom go on to develop significant careers in contemporary art. Through producing benchmark exhibitions, commissioning transformative works, and cultivating new talent, we emphasise contemporary art’s ability to reshape our understanding of society. Since its founding in 1996 by seven Hong Kong-based artists as an alternative space, Para Site has mounted over 300 exhibitions locally and globally, hosted over 80 international residents, and delivered over 1,000 public programmes.