Metamorphosis

The concept: Leyla Begim

Artists: Heyran Mustafa-Zade (heyranam) & Vafa Ashumova

Organized by: Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Czech Republic

Location: Fairmont Golden Prague - Pařížská 30, 110 00 Prague, Czechia

This installation reflects on the birth of a state as a process of inner, cultural, and collective becoming. The exhibition space is structured as a symbolic threshold: a glass wall reveals traces of an older structure intertwined with contemporary architecture, staging a dialogue between past and future.

At the centre are four works by Heyran Mustafa-Zade, depicting the human figure in states of transition. These images evoke identity as an ongoing process shaped by historical transformation, where the individual becomes a metaphor for society in flux.

Surrounding the composition, four dolls by Vafa Ashumova act as silent witnesses of time. They embody memory and establish an intergenerational presence within the space, where history is experienced rather than narrated.

Fragments of aged paper carry poems and quotations by Ahmad Javad alongside contemporary texts by modern poet, Leyla Begim. Torn yet enduring, they evoke a continuum between epochs, linking the emergence of freedom to its cultural articulation through language.

Traditional Azerbaijani musical instruments extend this resonance, embodying the continuity of cultural codes carried through sound and collective memory.

The installation considers the formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic as a process of renewal, in which independence emerges inseparably from memory, cultural continuity, and identity.