Elsewhere
Alia Farid (b.1985) lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico.
Artist BioWorking in film, sculpture, and textiles, Farid traces histories often marginalized or obscured by the discourse of the Global North. In her pieces, local practices and traditions are put to new ends, and the rhythms of everyday life acquire political significance and potency.
The sixteen large-scale rugs that span the length of the gallery are all hand-woven and embroidered, the result of a Farid’s close collaboration with weavers in southern Iraq. Inspired by archives and interviews with members of the community, the pieces depict storefronts, writing, and cityscapes that conjure the prominent presence of the Palestinian diaspora in Puerto Rico. Pharmacies, restaurants, and shops owned and operated by Palestinians feature in these boldly-colored works; mosques recur frequently, as does the language of advertising and commerce. One rug reproduces a menu for ‘Comida Arabe’. Hanging in two parallel rows, the installation summons linearity of the street grid, as well as the layering and accumulation of lived history and daily routine. The juxtaposition of architecture and script (both Arabic and Spanish) testify to the distinct scene of cultural contact that Farid elucidates, in which migration from one point in the Global South to another brings forth new meanings, forms, and struggles. This South-South solidarity is less an abstract virtue than a feature quite literally sewn into these works in accordance with the flat-weaving and chain-stitching practices—complete with traditional motifs—from the Iraqi city of Samawa.
This exhibition of Elsewhere is just the first installment of an ongoing research project, initially conceived in 2013, which maps Arab and South Asian migration to Latin America and the Caribbean. Other sites of investigation are Trinidad, Cuba and Mexico. In this accretive, iterative process, Elsewhere is a single node or moment, one mark on an intricate map.
Alia Farid
San Juan, PR
Alia Farid (b.1985) lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She has had solo exhibitions in Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; and CAC Passerelle. Recent and upcoming group shows include participation in the Geneva Biennale Sculpture Garden, Whitney Biennial, Diriyah Biennale, Bienal de São Paulo, Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2001 in MoMA PS1, Yokohama Triennale and Asia Pacific Triennial. She has forthcoming solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum Houston in partnership with Rivers Institute, and in Detroit Institute of Arts.
Alia Farid has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from la Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico (San Juan), a Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Visual Arts Program in MIT (Cambridge) and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies and Critical Theory from the Programa d’Estudis Independents MACBA (Barcelona). In 2023, she received The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award and in 2023-2024 she was the David and Roberta Logie Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.