We enjoy freedom to express ourselves. This blog and many others are a testimony. But it has not and in some places is still not a matter of fact.

I came across a new Emmy nominated documentary, The Desert of Forbidden Art. It’s about the Nukus Museum of Art or, in full, The State Art Museum of the Republic of Karakalpakstan (an autonomous area within Uzbekistan), which opened in 1966. Igor Savitsky (1915-84), a Russian born in Kiev, risking denunciation as an “enemy of the people”, sought out and assembled over 40,000 Russian avant-garde and post avant-garde pieces of art and housed them in the Nukus Museum. A trailer can be watched here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGX7kKrutpY.

Art and culture or just simple acts of humanity are often sources of inspiration that can sustain us in the darkest of circumstances. I remember my grandmother’s story of her father saving centuries old paintings from a temple about to be demolished by infidels. I now own one of those paining as a reminder of sacrifice and devotion to the true self.

about photo: the movie poster for Desert of Forbidden Art which was written, produced, and directed by Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev. Photo Credit: © Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev, from http://www.soros.org