Migrations of Form


Through a multidisciplinary practice that ranges from writing and drawing to film and sculpture, Alia Farid’s work gives visibility to narratives that are obscured by hegemonic power.

Artist Bio

Migration of Forms (Working Title) is a social practice project and ever-expanding tapestry that traces the history of Arab, South Asian, and African migration to Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on dialogue with diaspora communities and the examination of their own environments and architecture, Farid conjures a landscape of transnational spaces. The large-scale tapestry composed of smaller tapestries is based on images supplied by members of the community of spaces where their identity and heritage is formed and sustained. These images travel to weaving workshops amongst origin communities where Farid works with weavers, using this material as a point of departure to translate the information into a woven piece. Much like her own heritage, Farid’s work brings sites in relation with each other creating a transregionalism that belies national boundaries drawn on land.


Award Year
2022
Status

In Progress

A brown woman in her mid-thirties wearing a mock neck top and her hair tied. She is in her studio in Kuwait, inside of a building designed by the late Swiss architect Alfred Roth.

Alia Farid

San Juan, PR

Alia Farid lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She has had recent solo exhibitions at Portikus, Frankfurt and Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Rotterdam. Recent and upcoming group shows include participation in the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, the 12th Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennial 14, the 2nd Lahore Biennale, “Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2001” at MoMA PS1, the Yokohama Triennale 2020, and Forecast Form at Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago. She has forthcoming solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel, Basel and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAMSTL), St. Louis in 2022, and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Rivers Institute, New Orleans, and Chisenhale Gallery, London in 2023.