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/Craft in Postmodern Central Asia and the Threefold Social Organism
author: Alexey Ulko
cover: Dilyara Kaipova*
ODRA continues to publish the results of the open call in which we invited critics, curators, and art historians from Central Asia to share their thoughts and research on the regional contemporary art.

This text offers a critical, theoretically grounded analysis of the frameworks through which applied art, craft and tradition in Central Asia have been constructed and rearticulated. Tracing their transformation from Soviet cultural paradigms to contemporary postcolonial discourses, the essay interrogates the shifting boundaries between the traditional and the modern, questioning "who decides what is “traditional,” and when is that decision made? Are crafts, by definition, traditional? Or should we approach craft primarily as a technical practice—handmade, singular and materially expressive, yet not necessarily anchored in any national or culturally codified lineage? Does this object belong to tradition, by virtue of its technique?"
Alexey Ulko (MEd TTELT) is a consultant on contemporary art, researcher and filmmaker from Samarkand, Uzbekistan. His range of interests includes postcolonial studies and contemporary Central Asian art. He graduated from Samarkand State University in 1991 and obtained his master’s degree from the University of Exeter in 2001. In recent years, he has authored or contributed to several books, including ἀγάπη (2021), Censoring Art (2018), and Culture Smart! Uzbekistan (2017). He has co-curated several exhibitions, artistic, musical and educational projects in Central Asia, written over 50 articles and made more than 20 experimental films. He currently chairs the Uzbekistan Amateur Film Makers’ Association and is a member of the Association for Art History, the International Association of Art Critics, the European Society for Central Asian Studies and the Central Eurasian Studies Society.
In this text, I provide a structured examination of the main forces shaping contemporary developments in Central Asian applied arts. I grew up in a family in Samarkand where art, languages and archaeology were part of everyday conversation and practice, and Central Asian crafts such as embroidered textiles, ceramic objects, ancient artefacts and books were simply part of daily life.

My first professional encounter with the region's traditional art is based on extensive work I did translating and editing five volumes of the project The Artistic Culture of Central Asia and Azerbaijan in the 9th–15th Centuries, conducted by the International Institute for Central Asian Studies in the late 2000s. This process granted me access to a robust database and comprehensive analyses on Central Asian crafts, including ceramics, architecture, glassmaking, toreutics and various other forms of applied arts. Based on these experiences and avoiding a range of issues like civilisational divides, the nomadic–sedentary split, historical debates or the role of cultural economy, I focus on the concepts underpinning the aesthetic and ethical agency of craft today. I believe that in the region, craft is often treated as inherently and simultaneously traditional, ethnic, handmade, timeless, representational when in fact it is continuously reinvented, strategically framed and postmodern. What interests me is the potential for Central Asian artists and curators to think about and construct their own relationships to craft, not as its passive representatives but as conscious, educated and caring reflective practitioners.

1. Unrestored fragments of Magohi-Attori Mosque in Bukhara 2. A fragment of a restored architectural monument in Samarkand

Three approaches to applied art

My starting point is a critical examination of the assumed affinities between craft, applied art, tradition, the decorative, artisanal production and national frameworks. The specialist literature on Central Asian applied art often tends to treat these concepts not only as intrinsically linked,but as if their entanglement were self-evident.“In the journal Decorative Art of the USSR, applied art was presented as a component of decorative art, alongside monumental-decorative and design work, industrial design, folk art and traditional crafts.” [6] Nevertheless, applied art may also be seen as occupying a separate conceptual domain, differentiated both from the spheres of art and design and from the living routines of functional and artisanal making. This distinction becomes particularly significant when considering the historical and cultural context of Central Asia, where the evolution of applied arts has been shaped by several competing paradigms.

In the Soviet period, particularly after Stalin’s death (1953), the most frequently used generic term to describe this complex superstructure was “decorative and applied arts” (dekorativno-prikladnoe iskusstvo, DPI). Within Soviet dialectical frameworks, DPI was conceptualised as a synthesis of the decorative and the utilitarian, the traditional and the innovative based on a presumed distinction between fine art, folk craft and industrial production.
It served the state’s cultural agenda, allowing it to claim that traditional forms, such as ikat textiles, ceramics and suzani embroidery,could be properly revitalised, recontextualised and elevated to the level of fine arts only within a socialist realist narrative. The editorial to the first issue of the journal Decorative Art in the USSR (1957) opened with the following passage: “Artistic creativity in this field has acquired a new significance: to satisfy and cultivate the tastes of the broadest popular masses, to beautify the new, secure way of life and to clothe it in expressive, varied forms imbued with the substance of new ideas, emotions and aspirations. In this vast new endeavour, a creative and labour-based collaboration has been established and is evolving between artists and masters of folk art, as well as with those in industry.”

Central Asian ikat in Russian 18th century fabric.

Photo by Anton Karmanov

In other words, the Soviet state saw itself as the only legitimate custodian and curator of DPI which was regarded as a new level in the development of the uncurated and spontaneous traditional art for the present and the future. DPI was institutionalised and specialist educational programmes were established to standardise production and align it with the state ideology. This process removed traditional craft from its ritual and communal contexts; it aimed to raise DPI to the status of fine art and introduce new forms of expression that aligned with Soviet modernist cultural policy. In the words of Yulian Markhlevsky, “works of applied art, like architecture, stand closest to industry; they revolutionise the style of their era with remarkable speed and expressiveness.” Paradoxically, with the collapse of the USSR and Marxism as the official state ideology, not only have the language and methods of Soviet national cultural construction survived, but have gained renewed momentum. This resurgence has been driven by the rise of essentialist, ethnocentric national ideologies that have replaced Socialism at the core of statehood across all newly-formed Central Asian states, still often referred to as “republics”. Therefore, in my view, despite the shift that “fixes Uzbekistan in a transfigured Oriental past”, the Soviet concept of DPI remains the core framework for understanding and developing Central Asian crafts today. Its continued use by experts underscores its role as the field’s conceptual backbone.

Hazrati Imam complex, Tashkent

At the same time, Soviet museums in the region grew directly out of the Russian colonial ethnographic expeditions of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, inheriting their collections, visual logic and representational ambitions as instruments of cultural authority. Many museums were shaped by visionary artists and collectors who worked within (and sometimes beyond) Soviet cultural frameworks but carried with them orientalist tropes typical for the Soviet cultural policies of the time that simultaneously opposed and continued colonial practices. Eleonora Shafranskaya argues that “Soviet Orientalism subtly shifted the civilisational paradigm: happiness was expected to arrive via the Bolsheviks and Soviet power. The opposition to the orientalist canon was no longer framed as Local versus Russian (where “local” carries connotations of wildness and primitivism); instead, the new opposition was recalibrated as Local/Soviet...”.

Consequently, this approach to ethnographic collections was marked by two key features. First, it served the Soviet nationality-building programme, prioritising the construction of national cultural canons and the identification of “typical” art forms suitable for the purpose. Second, it operated largely as a technical exercise, emphasising the formal qualities of objects over their social functions. Obsessed with a perceived need to identify the distinct “national” features of various objects from different periods and locations, Soviet curators engineered their collections to present the later arbitrary administrative distinctions as real, creating different national styles and clearly defined local schools.

This is still evident in some theoretical works, [20] museum collections of Central Asian applied art and exhibitions based on these, for example, the exhibition “On the Roads of Samarkand. Wonders of Silk and Gold”, dedicated to “the renaissance of artisanal splendours of the 19th and early 20th centuries – being essential components of Uzbek identity” held at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris at the end of 2022. The exhibition presented beautiful objects of applied art of the late 19th-early 20th centuries described in relation to their techniques and contemporary geographical origins but provided little social and political context for their creation. A significant omission was the lack of reference to Russian colonisation and the establishment of Soviet power, both of which played a crucial role in shaping the region's applied arts.

It is interesting to examine the way Igor Savitsky, the famous collector of Karakalpak traditional art and the founder of the Savitsky Museum, described his collection in one of its first major catalogues published in Moscow in 1976. His poetic descriptions are purely technical, very detailed and colourful: “The deep indigo of the dress, softened by crimson-raspberry embroidery with white and yellow accents; the muted crimson-raspberry, often quilted robe in fine stripes, with embroidered cuffs of red-black felt cloth; the gold of the gumys takhya and tobelik headdresses, and the silver of numerous ornaments—all of this formed the chromatic image of traditional girls’ attire.” This abundance of technical details sharply contrasts with the lack of any social context, artisans’ names or even geographical and temporal references. All the objects of applied art in the catalogue are simply labelled “Karakalpak” with all attention drawn to their materiality: “Ak basly yer – a saddle with attached bone plates. Wood, bone, leather, cloth and nails with copper heads. Chapan zhense – a sleeve cuff for a summer women's robe. Homespun cotton fabric, cloth, velvet and silk threads.” Objects are there to be studied and admired as radiant emanations of the primordial national culture.

Aziza Kadyri'. Cut From The Same Cloth. Bukhara Biennial commission. 05/09/2025-20/11/2025. Photography by Adrien Dirand and Aziza Kadyri, link

In contrast, more recent anthropological and postcolonial approaches have reframed Central Asian craft within the broader discourse of the non-Western world art. This paradigm emphasises craft as a process of cultural survival, resistance and epistemological depth. Rather than viewing craft as merely utilitarian or decorative enterprise or representational of a nation, it is understood as a repository of personalised memory, gendered labor and cosmological meaning. The application of anthropological lens to traditional craft is not without its problems, however. Although it critiques the exoticisation of craft in Western institutions and challenges the marginalisation of non-Western aesthetic systems, in Central Asian context it still remains a new epistemological tradition, seen as borrowed from and aimed at the contemporary Western artworld. According to Nigora Akhmedova, “the mobilisation of ethnocultural traditions as a vehicle for identity expression across all levels of society has emerged as a kind of state-sanctioned and popular trend throughout Central Asia.” Due to its focus on ever-shifting, constantly evolving practices, the anthropological approach to craft has proven particularly amenable to postmodernist explorations of tradition within contemporary art. This perspective has been effectively employed by artists such as Dilyara Kaipova, Almagul Menlibayeva, Saodat Ismailova, Gulnur Mukajanova, Aziza Qadyri, among others. On the other hand, these experiments do not completely sever connections with orientalist self-exotisation and may be seen as compatible with the mainstream DPI discourse precisely because “artists engage in a dialogue about global issues without losing touch with centuries-old traditions.” [25] This can also be achieved following a different path. Traditional craftswoman Muhayo Alieva reimagines the chipan robe through contemporary silhouettes and colour, while preserving handwoven silk techniques. Her atelier, supported by the Ibu Movement, firmly steers home-based textile production in the context of creative economy and cultural tourism, also engaging postmodernist ideas through practice rather than theory to meet the market demand.

1. Saodat Ismailova, What was my name?, 2020. Installation, neon. Length: 120 сm. Credits: Aspan Gallery, link.

2. Saodat Ismailova, Gulaim, 2014. Single-channel HD video. Duration: 27:41 min. Credits: Aspan Gallery, link.

The Soviet modernist DPI model, the ethnographic approach and the anthropological reframing represent distinct yet interrelated paradigms; rather than being mutually exclusive, they frequently converge within contemporary artistic and curatorial practices. At the same time, the emerging tensions between these frameworks can be productive because they enable artists and curators to critically examine the construction of traditions and identity by shifting their perspective. Using these frameworks, practitioners can reflect on the symbolic, functional and ritual aspects of applied art, reconsider traditional ideas of heritage and position cultural forms within current economic and discursive contexts.
Tradition and postmodernity

This inquiry inevitably leads to a reconsideration of tradition. Are crafts, by definition, traditional? Or should we approach craft primarily as a technical practice—handmade, singular and materially expressive, yet not necessarily anchored in any national or culturally codified lineage? The presumption that craft is intrinsically traditional risks collapsing technique into heritage, which is then reinterpreted through the primordialist lens of “national tradition,” a concept that is inherently contradictory given that the nation itself is a modernist phenomenon.

The dominant narratives surrounding applied art do not nicely dovetail with contemporary constructivist thinking where, as Benedict Anderson famously argued, nations are seen as “imagined communities," modern constructs shaped by capitalism, colonialism, institutional frameworks and selective historical narratives. In a further blow to ethnographic essentialism, Eric Hobsbawm emphasised that many so-called traditions are “invented,” often retrospectively assembled to serve the ideological needs of modern nation-states. This is even more pertinent in relation to the Soviet nationality building programme. From their inception, national identities have been bifurcated into political and ethnic dimensions, with the latter forming the basis of Soviet cultural doctrine and continuing to shape official narratives in Central Asia. In the post-Soviet context, the persistent emphasis on ethnicity reinforces essentialist readings so common in the region.

Consequently, the region’s crafts have long been framed through the lens of heritage: first by imperial ethnographers, then by Soviet cultural bodies and more recently by international contemporary art institutions and heritage NGOs. Each of these actors has constructed tradition in its own image, often privileging continuity over experimentation and stability over ambiguity. However, the question what exactly carries tradition has never been clearly defined. Is it the technique? The use? The status? Or the signs and symbols associated with tradition?

Ceramist Ablokulov in Urgut

One might propose a thought experiment reminiscent of the Ship of Theseus. Consider a seemingly perfect and culturally authentic object, such as a 19th-century Turkmen carpet or a Karakhanid ceramic bowl. To interrogate what precisely constitutes its “traditional” essence, we begin to alter it incrementally. Change the production technique, substitute the original material with a close analogue, modify only the colour, or adjust the ornamentation while preserving the rest. At what point does the object cease to be traditional? Where exactly does the threshold lie between continuity and rupture? This exercise highlights not only the constructed nature of tradition but also its composite character. It prompts us to ask whether tradition lies in form, function, technique or symbolic gesture, and whether it can endure any transformation without losing its claim to authenticity. This also leads to an important pragmatic question: who decides what is “traditional,” and when is that decision made?

In many contemporary Central Asian artisan practices, we observe a great number of elements that are often marked as traditional, yet they may be recent inventions, stylised quotations or deliberate fabrications designed to satisfy market expectations. Consider, for instance, a piece of silk woven using traditional methods—hand-reeled, naturally dyed, produced on a narrow loom—but bearing a pattern that is unmistakably contemporary, perhaps geometric or abstract. Does this object belong to tradition, by virtue of its technique? Or does it belong to the contemporary, by virtue of its aesthetic language? Anyone familiar with recent Uzbek contemporary art may recognise in it a description of Dilyara Kaipova’s famous series of ikats featuring various iconic symbols of mass culture, the most successful being her adaptation of the white Ghostface mask, popularized by the Scream movie franchise (pic 1 below).

1. Dilyara Kaipova. Scream, 2020. Silk, cotton, 115 x 152 cm. Edition: 4+1AP 2. Dilyara Kaipova. Adidas, 2021. Cotton. 102 x 178 cm. Edition: 4+1AP 3. Dilyara Kaipova. Mickey, 2021. Wool, cotton. 96 x 167 cm. Edition: 4+1AP. Credits: Aspan Gallery, link

Nigora Akhmedova firmly places the series in the field of thought-provoking contemporary art: “In the context of contemporary postcolonial theory, she [Kaipova] reflects on the expansion of Western standards in post-Soviet Central Asia. Her critical stance is also evident in relation to the region’s national identity policies, which are shaped by aesthetic norms of orientalisation and the self-colonisation of indigenous culture.” This identification, however, was only possible because Akhmedova was familiar with both the artist’s intent and the source image. A few years later, Kaipova found out that her popular Ghostface motif had been replicated by artisans in Kokand, where she had commissioned the production of her textile designs. Yet the reproductions made it clear that the artisans were unaware of the original mass culture reference; their imitation resembled a form of cargo cult, only generally replicating the visual pattern on their ikats without grasping its conceptual meaning. For the artisans, Kaipova’s textiles were not perceived as individualised expressions of contemporary art, but rather as appealing motifs readily available for replication and tweaking, which is typical of the impersonal logic of folk art, where patterns circulate freely, often detached from their original authorship or conceptual intent. Could this unforeseen loophole reinsert the reproductions into the domain of traditional craft? To what extent does prior cultural knowledge (or its absence) determine how such objects are classified as artworks?
Another interesting example from Uzbekistan is the mass production of ceramic plates adorned with ikat-inspired motifs, sold alongside more conventionally decorated pottery. Although the visual reference evokes a sense of “tradition,” it originates from a different medium, textile rather than ceramic. This raises a critical question: are such objects merely simulacra of tradition, replicating its surface aesthetics without continuity of practice, as claimed by purists, or do they represent a legitimate extension of tradition, recontextualised across media and modes of production, as seems to be the consent between producers and customers?

A plate by Sofia Rakova, Samarkand

The intricate trajectories of tradition within the realm of craft and applied art compel me to interrogate a parallel set of ideas, namely those concerning the preservation, death and revival of tradition itself. Since neither the concept of tradition, nor its core signifiers, nor its sanctioned custodians have ever been definitively established, the “fate of tradition” in the culture and applied arts of Central Asia remains in constant flux. It is repeatedly redefined across a spectrum of interpretations, ranging from flourishing to endurance to extinction. Some state programmes, like Kazakhstan’s “Ruhani zhangyru,” emphasise primordial character of Central Asian culture and demand a wide-scale cultural production “demonstrating the continuity of Kazakhstan’s civilizational history.” [35] On the other side of spectrum, such artists as Almagul Menlibayeva and Saodat Ismailova, “grapple with the impact of Soviet rule on Central Asia, where colonization erased, transformed and disrupted indigenous cultures.” [36]
The prevailing consensus, however, appears to be that national “applied decorative arts, born of centuries of collective creativity,” have survived but must be preserved, valued, practised and transmitted to younger generations. [37]

Although scholarly research programmes focused on the study, preservation and classification of authentic and traditional art objects, often guided by ethnographic methodologies, receive limited public attention, the predominant theme regarding cultural traditions in the region is notably centred around “the revival of tradition,” with particular emphasis on impressive public displays.[38] The phrase contains an immanent and fundamental paradox succinctly articulated by Professor Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene at an academic conference in 2015, where he observed: “If we speak of reviving a tradition, we are implicitly admitting that it no longer exists.” Tradition evolves, mutates and, at times, disappears. Any attempt to “return” to a lost origin necessarily involves the selection of an arbitrary historical moment, which is then declared pure, authentic and untainted. This fantasy of historical reversal, akin to pressing Ctrl+Z on the cultural timeline, is seductive but ultimately illusory. Time does not move backwards, and yet a wide range of stakeholders from state authorities and expert communities to travel agents and their customers frequently behave as though it just might.
Leaving aside its political instrumentalisation, “the revival of tradition” across Central Asia has produced a distinctly postmodern cultural landscape. The interplay between authenticity and invention, memory and fabrication, once used in a Soviet modernist nation-building project, has come to define a broader aesthetic mode, where a vaguely defined “Eastern tradition” is mobilised as a curated reference.
Central Asian postmodernism manifests in a wide array of genres and artistic forms. Among the most paradigmatic examples is Saparmurat Niyazov’s Ruhnama, a text that combines autobiography, myth and historical revisionism to construct a unified national identity. Writing about Uzbek fine arts, Dildora Umarova suggests a seemingly self-contradictory, but apt term “national postmodernism” as addressing the tensions “between Western and Eastern artistic paradigms within contemporary national art”.

This is even more evident in architecture. The Kazakh capital Astana may also be viewed as a vast postmodern hyperobject, a planned city whose eclectic architecture fuses futuristic forms with references to nomadic and imperial motifs. Samuel Goff writes about Astana as “a postmodern pastiche, a glass and steel protrusion” and describes the charm of “the usual post-Soviet requisite of postmodern civic architecture” in Bishkek. The desire to give certain ideological concepts, often developed by the state,
a visible and distinctive form that is both contemporary and national gives rise to increasingly radical postmodernist projects. In Kyrgyzstan, the spiritual compound Alaam-Ordo was conceived as a monumental site intended to evoke ancestral wisdom through symbolic architecture and ceremonial educational programming.
In Uzbekistan, this tendency is evident in projects such as the “Eternal City” near Samarkand, a tourist complex that reconstructs imagined historical architecture using contemporary materials, and the Centre for Islamic Civilisation in Tashkent which presents Islamic history through a modern design idiom.

New Eternal City Tourists Complex, near Samarkand

Interestingly, Central Asian orientalist postmodernism is rarely recognised as such even in the critical literature. The main reason is that it was never consciously conceived in those terms. It did not emerge
in the 1960s from debates about grand narratives, deconstruction or a “shattering of faith”. [49] Instead,
it developed gradually and almost organically as an honest attempt to produce straightforward modernist expressions by reworking local artistic traditions. Many ideas were conceived at the time but remained unrealised or underdeveloped as “the continued promulgation of certain techno-utopias, sincerely and without a hint of irony”, [50] only coming to fruition in the post-Soviet era. By the time theoretical discourse around these practices began to take shape in the 2010s and 2020s, postmodernism had already acquired a reputation as outdated or even discredited. Dominant narratives had shifted towards notions
of metamodernism or Soviet revisionism, leaving little room for retrospective recognition of Central Asian postmodernism.

Yet despite the absence of conscious philosophical application, the condition of postmodernity in Central Asia persists, marked by hybridity, fragmentation and layered temporalities that continues to define the region’s artistic and intellectual landscape. Central Asian orientalist postmodernism closely mirrors the paradoxical logic of invention described by Gilbert Simondon. Such cultural inventions “restore” the compatibility between objects existing on different planes, enabling the reconciliation of relations across fragmented realities. [51] From this viewpoint, Central Asian postmodernity is not merely a technical or stylistic breakthrough but the discovery of mediation between two conflicting paradigms, “tradition” and “revival”. Anvar Kadyrov also writes about “the problem of achieving a state of consensus in the mutual collision of the outdated old communist mentality and the postmodern, digital mentality.”
With parallels observable in applied arts in other countries,
I believe that this consensus is reached with the help of the old Soviet idea of stylisation which served as a precursor to Central Asia’s present-day aesthetic postmodernity.
This approach was criticised in the USSR in the 1970s within the framework of “high DPI” for its perceived superficiality. At the time, “stylisation” was seen as an attempt to overcome the neutral functionality and anonymity of standardised architecture, interior design and ordinary objects by introducing a carnivalesque atmosphere into serious everyday life, an aesthetic previously relegated to restaurants and tourist attractions. Within the framework of the “national”, it is the postmodern blurring of boundaries between high and low, kitsch and refinement, commercial and absurd that has equipped artists and curators in the region with a rich repertoire of strategies. This has enabled the creation of architectural, artistic and artisanal objects with diverse tone and purpose where the subtlety of stylisation often serves as a key distinguishing element between different genres or even types of cultural expression.

Artists from Samarkand visiting Uzbek ceramists in 1964

As much as I personally prefer more conventional distinctions, I do not view these artistic developments as inherently problematic. They reflect the broader dynamics of postmodern cultural production in the region, where hybridity, pastiche and simulation have become not simply common but dominant modes of expression. Rather than framing the discussion in terms of authenticity or national versus hybrid identity, I would prefer to redirect attention towards analysis of the deployed aesthetic and methodological strategies. Considering the earlier Ship of Theseus thought experiment, there is limited value in disputing the authenticity of identical contemporary glazed ceramic tiles utilised for both the restoration of the UNESCO-listed Shahi-Zinda ensemble and the adornment of the Eternal City tourist complex in Samarkand.
From a realist perspective, espoused by Bobur Ismoilov, Eternal City’s designer, any artwork produced in the present inevitably falls under the category of contemporary art, regardless of its stylistic or thematic orientation. Consequently, invocations of tradition within the Central Asian context, however sincere or ostensibly authentic, must be understood as happening within a wider postmodern framework shaped by orientalist legacies and different ways of stylisation. This perspective ought to serve as the foundation for continued discourse on the topic.

The real issue arises when these postmodernist practices are disavowed or obscured, when the postmodern game is played without acknowledging its rules. Ultimately, the challenge lies not in the existence of “reinvented traditions” but in the refusal to admit their artifice. That is why I am wary of sudden shifts toward metamodernist narratives, especially when they recycle neo-Soviet revisionism and treat Soviet modernist practices in the region as if they were not shaped by colonial dynamics. A more honest approach would recognise the postmodern condition as a legitimate mode of cultural expression, one that engages with tradition not as a fixed inheritance but as a dynamic and contested field of meaning. At the same time, accepting postmodernity as a living cultural reality does not mean sliding into relativism. The freedom and aesthetic play of the postmodern celebration still operate within artistic and discursive boundaries.
I believe that rather than debating authenticity, representation or identity, the analytical query should move towards the challenges of individuation, towards the agency of artisans, the integrity of their craft and the ethical dimensions of their practices.
Ethical subject of craft

Let us summarise the key points of the discussion so far. Earlier, we examined three distinct approaches to applied art: ethnographic, DPI and anthropological. We also addressed the internal contradictions inherent in the notion of a “revival of tradition,” which may be resolved by recognising tradition as a fluid construct, open to reinterpretation and strategic use. This perspective aligns with the broader framework of Central Asian orientalist postmodernism, which has become increasingly established in the region. Rather than engaging in polemics over definitions of authenticity, it seems more productive to accept that the relationship between craft and tradition can be deliberately constructed by artists or curators who choose to explore this terrain at will and that such gestures remain entirely legitimate within the global language of contemporary art.

However, there is another aspect of tradition itself that is fraught with ambiguity. It is the question of subject. Tradition is often understood as informal and anonymous, passed on through embodied practice rather than textual instruction. In this sense, tradition guarantees a certain impersonality; it is unreflected, habitual but flexible.

Traditional narrow loom weaving

However, when authorship enters the frame, when the artisan becomes a named figure, the dynamic shifts. The emergence of the contemporary “master” disrupts the anonymity and the shared nature of tradition and introduces a new axis of value: individual creativity, reflection and awareness. In certain ways, this modernist individuation contradicts one of the principles of decolonising design posited by Mariluz Soto Hormazábal and Khandwala who insisted that “false divides and distinctions amongst art, craft and design should be omitted to acknowledge all cultural forms of creation and making.” However, the situation is more subtle than that.
As I have argued earlier, according to the Soviet nationality building concept, the progression from artisan to artist and subsequent flattening of the hierarchy was considered achievable only within the framework of Socialist DPI development. In Central Asia, with its emphasis on ethnic nation, this principle was taken a step further towards an ethical obligation that art and craft should visually represent “national traditions.” While Japanese artists are not obliged to don kimonos or wield samurai swords, Central Asian artists often exhibit a compulsive attachment to the forms and techniques that are deemed traditional, even within the domain of contemporary art. “Kazakhstani artists today direct their thoughts towards a mental, imagined territory where the ‘inherently Kazakh’ (nomadic, steppe, Asian, shamanic, mystical) begins to articulate itself through the language and strategies of Western contemporary art, yet with a strong “accent” of the Soviet artistic canon.” [58] This statement underlines the metonymical amalgamation of all heterogenous components of “national culture” where commas are replaced by equation (nomadic = steppe = Asian = shamanic = mystical) which I referred to in the beginning of this text. Apart from the need for an analytical deconstruction of the metonymy, I feel that it poses a serious ethical problem related to reflection on the [post]colonial conditions under which tradition is mobilised and the extent to which it remains a freely chosen and conscious artistic strategy.
This brings us back to the question of craft which is defined as an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. Disentangled from the issues of national representation, authenticity and tradition, craft seems to be about the physicality of an art piece, the quality of the handmade, the singularity of the object, the dexterity of the maker. In the contemporary context of creative economy, “one of the biggest challenges for craft producers is distinguishing their high-value hand-made products from the cheaper mass-produced items often sold as souvenirs.” [60] Paradoxically, at the time when traditional items were still used locally and had a pragmatic function, artisans were less concerned with their aesthetic values than now, when DPI art works are sold to tourists as purely cultural objects. Obviously, these different pragmatic contexts and markets require different skills. This even affects the representational function as now the place is reconsidered through the development of particular relations with the tourists. “When tourists build a relationship with the people and places they travel to, they appreciate the value of the experiences they have and the local crafts they encounter … they will be more willing to pay for high quality, individualised goods.” [61]

Soviet-era teapots for sale in Bukhara

Setting aside the complex socio-economic considerations concerning the integration of “traditional” crafts into the creative economy, I would like to address the interrelationship between the technical and ethical dimensions of craftsmanship. This area is frequently neglected, as technical proficiency with materials is often perceived solely as a practical skill, with its cultural context assumed and its broader significance insufficiently acknowledged. An interesting attempt at restoring ethical integrity to this otherwise instrumental approach has been made in Uzbekistan with the introduction of the ustoz-shogird (master-apprentice) mentoring system. This is another example of vaguely formulated postmodernist discourse positioned as a “revival of tradition”. The basic premise for the discourse is to be found in “the time immemorial”, when it was “customary for accomplished masters of their craft to take on apprentices in order to pass down their art and the secrets of their trade to the younger generation. Thanks to this tradition, we have preserved the foundations and customs of our nation.” [62] Although this top-down approach is full of references to various prominent figures from the past, [64] it reflects a contemporary desire to complement formal education with strong elements of experience-based vocational training. Derived from the concepts and practices of the “national DPI”, the ustoz-shogird system has introduced a personal element to teaching craft through mentoring and has remarkably easily spread across various disciplines, including classical organ music, [65] HR management in textile industry, [66] gas production [67] and even air force training. [68]


The ustoz-shogird principle is often criticised for its imitative character: while it gestures toward organic transmission of values and skills, it is often institutionalised through state-sponsored organisations, festivals and privileges that flatten the complexity of lived craft traditions. “Today, ustoz is more of a status than a reflection of genuine expertise… Being an ustoz is not a profession—it is a divine gift, and not everyone receives it. That is why promoting the ustoz-shogird system is pointless. It is not a human-to-human transmission, but a connection between the divine and the individual, and a channelling of that divine essence from one person to another,” claims Sukhrtob Nazimov.

Nevertheless, the master-apprentice system introduced in Uzbekistan holds interesting potential. It reframes craft not merely as economic output or a manifestation of identity but as a holistic process
of learning and becoming, where skill acquisition is inseparable from personal growth, ethical formation and the cultivation of character. For some schools of artisans (e.g. potters from Rishtan, Uzbekistan), [70] this model resonates with Sufi traditions of spiritual mentorship—murshid and murid, master and disciple. [71] Although the state tends to discourage such direct associations, still, the spiritual aspect of mentorship in craft persists and some attempts are being made to refer to the Sufi practices in teaching craft and other subjects.[72]

Traditional embroidery workshop in Uzbekistan

To avoid self-exotisation, it is important to remember that the master-apprentice method of personal development through skills acquisition is not exclusive to Islamic or Central Asian traditions. Similar dynamics could be found in European guilds, where the relationship between master and apprentice often carried moral and symbolic weight. Freemasonry offers fascinating parallels: operational skills passed through stages of mastery, alongside ethical and philosophical reflection on the tools of the craft. Like some Sufi schools (in particular, Mouridiya [73] and Chishtiya [74]), Freemasonry links spiritual development with manual labour. Whether one is a carpenter, jeweller, or builder, the act of making entails obligations—ethical, practical and spiritual. “This term [craft] underscores Freemasonry’s commitment to personal growth, ethical conduct, and brotherhood, serving as a bridge between its past as a craftsman and its present as a fraternity dedicated to self-improvement.” [75]

In the context of craft and applied art, this path to self-improvement raises complex questions about what artisans are expected to produce and how. Ethical considerations emerge around materials, pricing, collaboration and the broader social impact of their work. Since we have established subtlety of stylisation in postmodern context as an important part of contemporary artisanship, it can be also articulated subjectively as a matter of taste (what Kant might have called aesthetic judgement), which remains an ethical concern, not just a stylistic one. [76]

I believe that understanding and advancing Central Asian artisanal practices can benefit from engaging with contemporary studies that situate these practices alongside broader intellectual traditions. Examining the region’s craft-related challenges through the lens of thinkers who developed distinct schools of thought on art and making offers valuable insights. One of these is the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society of the 19th century, in particular, William Morris who “believed passionately in the importance of creating beautiful, well-made objects that could be used in everyday life, and that were produced in a way that allowed their makers to remain connected both with their product and with other people.” This principle is taken even further in Waldorf pedagogy which is based on the premise that art and craft nurture creativity, critical thinking and emotional resilience by engaging students in expressive, hands-on problem solving. [78] It also deepens cultural understanding, enhances cognitive development and fosters a sense of belonging through shared artistic practice.

Ultimately, this is also a question of the artistic agency of each master. Esoterically, each craftsperson builds their Temple working on themselves from the outside through a rigorous discipline and from within opening to the vibrations of the higher artistic planes. The first path is explored by King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, who believes that craft is inseparable from personal transformation, requiring disciplined attention and effort guided by necessity and sufficiency. He suggests that a craftsperson engages three tools: hands, head and heart, each with its own discipline, ultimately forming a unified commitment to time and intention. “If we live in the way of craft, the craft lives in us; as we describe this way, the craft reveals itself through us. Any true way will be able to describe itself through its craftspeople.” Fripp’s disciplined approach to craft finds a counterpart in David Lynch’s sensitivity to subtle, often inconspicuous ideas. Lynch has repeatedly emphasised that when an idea arises, he commits to it and continually assesses whether his interpretation stays true to its essence. This ethic of attentive and careful fidelity to the artistic idea is a vital principle that underpins creativity and art in general. “Every idea that you fall in love with is a gift. How the ideas come is the trick.”
Craft, as explored in this final part of the text, is not merely technical or aesthetic but a deeply ethical practice. It resists the extractive logic of the creative economy by prioritising care, sustainability and attentiveness to materials. Through mentorship and embodied repetition, craft fosters humility, integrity and responsibility. These qualities emerge in relationships between maker and user, master and apprentice and within broader cultural ecosystems.
The master plays a central role in this process, expressing agency through intention, discipline and fidelity to process, guided by sensitive and disciplined personal judgement. Mastery is not defined by status but by the ability to uphold ethical conduct through practice and individual responsibility. Craft, when freed from the constraints of representation, tradition, authenticity, identity politics and commerce, offers a pluralistic alternative in the conditions of postmodernity that values uniqueness, manual skill and experiential learning.

Philosophically, craft aligns with virtue ethics and posthuman perspectives, prompting reflection on our relations with materials, tools and processes. Historical parallels from Sufi to Morris and from Steiner to Fripp affirm the developmental power of handmade work. If craft is understood as the discipline of the head, the heart, and the hands practised by master and transferred to their disciples, then in its outer form, craft works towards the ideals of a society grounded in equality before the law, economically structured as a large community of humans and non-humans and committed to individual artistic freedom that at the same time remains ethically loyal to an artistic idea. Craft is not merely about making; it is about making with conscience, care and clarity of vision.

*Сover image: Dilyara Kaipova. Mickey, 2022. Chapan, cotton. 135 x 185 cm. Edition: 4 + 1 link: https://aspangallery.com/en/artists/Kaipova
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