The exhibition titled The Aural Sea will be open to the public from May 9 to November 22, 2026. ​

At the heart of the pavilion's concept are myth-making and storytelling as ways to respond to environmental transformations and learn from the Aral Sea region in Karakalpakstan. ACDF reminds us that since the 1960s, due to the large-scale diversion of rivers for agricultural irrigation, the Aral Sea has lost over 90% of its volume, and one of the world's largest inland bodies of water has turned into a desert landscape.

The pavilion is curated by a team of five curators: Sophie Mayuko Arni, Aziza Izamova, Kamila Mukhitdinova, Nico Sun, and Thái Hà. The curatorial collective was formed through the Bukhara Biennial Curatorial School—an ACDF initiative launched at the request of Gayane Umerova and with the mentoring support of the first Bukhara Biennale's Artistic Director, Diana Campbell, in collaboration with the Delfina Foundation.

The Aural Sea project will feature works by Jahongir Bobokulov, Zi Kakhramonova, Aygul Sarsen, Zulfiya Spowart, Xin Liu, A.A.Murakami, and Nguyen Phuong Linh. It is stated that the artists work with installation, interactive formats, and painting, and their practices span a spectrum from scientific modeling to folkloric imagination, from monumental textiles to delicate craftwork.

The exhibition builds on the foundation's long-term work in the Aral Sea region—specifically through the Aral Culture Summit and the recently launched Aral School. The announcement text also mentions Karakalpak author Allayar Darmenov, whom the curators note "began writing the Aral Sea back to life" in 2015—and this thread establishes the idea of imagination as a form of agency: storytelling is presented here not as an escape from reality, but as a tool for processing loss and seeking a possible future.