CHOY

Exhibition : 4th TashkentAle
2008.10.21 - 10.27
Caravanserai of Culture, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Organized by :
The Forum of Culture & Arts of Uzbekistan Foundation
The Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan
The Tashkent House of Photography
International Caravanserai of Culture

Supported by :
POLA ART FOUNDATION (JP)
THE JAPAN FOUNDATION

Special Thanks :
Farrukh USMANOV (UZ) / Pavel KIM (UZ)

Uzbekistan is famous for its ruins of the ancient Silk Road.

I had a great opportunity to discover this Central Asian hospitality in Tashkent and Bukhara, especially from the culture of Choy.

In Japan, when people said "tea", it means naturally green tea (Ocha). And in West, it signifies automatically black tea. When you go to restaurant in Uzbekistan, you have to always choose the tea, K'ok Choy (green tea) or Qora choy (black tea).

It was very impressionable cultural aspect for me. It seemed generous hospitality of old oasis city or the peaceful handshaking between different cultures.

Using two different tea leaves, I have drawn a line between East and West. The green tea leaf on East and the black tea leaf on West, and mixing at the middle.
This is a report of my short time research, and this installation is like a rough sketch that simply describes my first impression of this central Asian culture.