PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Between July 6 and 11, the initiative’s first-ever pop-up program celebrated crafts of Kazakhstan at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. Eight Kazakh artisans engaged audiences in discussions about the preservation and transmission of their craft from one generation to another—within their home country and to Kazakh diaspora in the United States. The craft traditions represented by these artisans included traditional embroidery, felting, weaving, wood carving, and musical instrument making.

Among the highlights of Soul of Tengri, Festival visitors attended a collaboratively taught felting workshop by master artisans Janice Arnold and Aizhan Bekkulova. For the program’s close, partners presented a fashion show on July 11, hosted in the National Museum of Asian Art’s Meyer Auditorium, featuring fashion designed and developed by the Union of Artisans.