Inspired by the strong and uncompromising persona of Turandot, as portrayed in Giacomo Puccini’s eponymous opera, the exhibition TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East pays homage to women artists from Central Asia and the Near East. 

Deriving from the Persian Turandokht, a common female first name, the character of Turandot first appeared in François Pétis de la Croix’s 1710 translation into French of Haft Paykar (Seven Beauties), a pre-Islamic epic tale of Persian King Bahram featuring a fictional and cold-hearted princess from the far-off North. As an unusual and exotic name in a European context, Turandot became an object of fascination to Western playwrights and composers, including Puccini, with the character often subject to orientialisation and othering interpretations and fantasies. This exhibition reinterprets Turandot to pay homage to women artists of the Near East, and Central Asian countries, whose voices are often lost among those of other regions of the world.