Join internationally renowned artist Shahzia Sikander for a keynote presentation highlighting her spectacular work and career. Using her classical training in Indo-Persian manuscript painting as a point of departure, her diverse body of work is infused with contemporary South Asian, American, Feminist and Muslim perspectives. In this illustrated talk, Sikander reflects on how her work deconstructs ideas of tradition, culture and identity, questions notions of homogeneous and authentic national cultures, and shares the development of her artistic practice from painting to other mediums.

After the talk, attendees are invited to view the exhibition Being and Belonging to view Sikander’s work on display.

This program is generously supported by the Dan Mishra South Asia Initiative.  

 
Speakers:

Shahzia Sikander

Pakistani-American Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969, Pakistan) is widely celebrated for expanding and subverting pre-modern and classical Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. By bringing traditional and historical practice into dialogue with contemporary international art practices, Sikander’s multivalent and investigative work examines colonial archives to readdress Orientalist narratives in Western art history from a feminist perspective. Sikander’s paintings, video animations, mosaics, and sculpture explore gender roles and sexuality, cultural identity, racial narratives, and colonial and postcolonial histories through a blending of traditional motifs and contemporary imagery. Sikander currently lives and works in New York. 

Event captured on November 8, 2023.