- Source: Alia Syed
Alia Syed (born 1964) is an experimental filmmaker and artist of Welsh-Indian descent.
Biography
Born in Swansea, Wales, Syed earned her Bachelors in Fine Arts from the University of East London in 1987 and a Postgraduate degree in Mixed Media from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1992. She has taught and lectured at Central St. Martins and the Chelsea College of Art and Design, and she is now an associate lecturer at Southampton Solent University. Syed’s work has been screened and exhibited in museums, galleries, and festivals worldwide, including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) in London, and the Talwar Gallery, which has represented her for over a decade, in New York City and in New Delhi. Syed lives and works in London, UK.
Syed’s work focuses on issues of identity, representation, and language, often incorporating sound and text, in addition to images and characters, to explore and question structures of personal and collective narrative. Syed has said, “I am interested in language; we construct ourselves through language; it creates the space where we define ourselves. Film can be a mirror—it can throw things back at us in a way that makes us question the ideas we have about ourselves and through this each other…I [am] interested in what happens when you hold more than one ‘culture’ within you at any given time.”
Selected exhibitions
= Solo exhibitions
=2019
Talwar Gallery, Meta Incognita: Missive II, New York, NY, US
2018
LUX, Wallpaper, London, UK
2017
Talwar Gallery, On a wing and a prayer, New York, NY, US
2013
Talwar Gallery, Panopticon Letters: Missive I, New York, NY, US
2012
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Eating Grass, Los Angeles, CA, US
2010
Talwar Gallery, Wallpaper, New York, NY, US
2009
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Imagine your own history, Madrid, Spain
Talwar Gallery, Elision, New Delhi, India
2008
Talwar Gallery, New York, NY, US
2006
Millais Gallery, Southampton, UK
2005
Arts Depot, 1001100111001, London, UK, Eating Grass
2004
Talwar Gallery, Eating Grass, New York, NY, US
2003
Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA), London, UK
Talwar Gallery, New York, NY, US
2002
Jigar, a retrospective of Alia Syed's film works
(February --March) The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK
(February --March) The Space Gallery at InIVA, London, UK
(June --August) Turnpike Gallery, Manchester, UK
(June --September) Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland
= Selected other exhibitions
=2021
Talwar Gallery, as the wind blows, New York, NY, US
2019
Yale Center of British Art, Migrating Worlds: The Art of the Moving Image in Britain, New Haven, US
2018
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delirium Equilibrium, New Delhi, India
Lahore Biennale 01, Lahore, Pakistan
2016
Van Every/Smith Museum Galleries, Contents Under Pressure, Davidson, North Carolina, US
2015
Hangar, GHOSTS, Lisbon, Portugal
2014
Pumphouse Gallery, You cannot step twice into the same river, London, UK
Solyanka State Gallery, PARAJANOV, Moscow, Russia
2013
5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2011
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Ffilm 3, Swansea, UK
2010
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), On Line, curated by Connie Butler and Catherine de Zegher, New York, NY, US
2009
Talwar Gallery, Excerpts from Diary Pages, New York, NY, US
2006
XV Sydney Biennale, Zones of Contact, Sydney, Australia
2005
Hayward Gallery, BALTIC, The British Art Show, touring show, UK
Arts Depot, 1001100111001, London, UK
Talwar Gallery, (desi)re, New York, NY, US
2003
Tate Britain, A Century of Artists' Film in Britain, London, UK
Film works
2019: Meta Incognita: Missive II
2016: On a wing and a prayer (text by David Herd)
2010–2013: Panopticon Letters: Missive I
2008–2011: Priya
2006–2011: A Story Told
2010: Wallpaper
2005: LA Diary
2003: Eating Grass
2001: Spoken Diary
1994: The Watershed
1991: Fatima's Letter
1989: Three Paces, Swan
1987: Unfolding
1985: Durga
Selected honors, lectures and screenings
2010- Tate Britain, Conversation Pieces, London, UK
2005- Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (LACMA), Eating Grass, Los Angeles, CA
2000- Tate Modern, Watershed in Performing Bodies, London, UK
1997- Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Fatima's Letter, London, UK
1996- Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Watershed in Pandemonium, London, UK
1994- Ikon Gallery, Fatima's Letter in Beyond Destination, Birmingham, UK
1991- Tate Gallery, Fatima's Letter in 25 years of British Avant Garde, London, UK
References
External links
The National, Eating Grass, Los Angeles, CA
"Glasgow artist Alia Syed shortlisted for £10,000 filmmaking prize," July 2015
Art Asia Pacific, "Eating Grass," July 2013
New York Observer, Alia Syed: Panopticon Letters, April 1, 2013.
LACMA, Eating Grass: Q & A with Filmmaker Alia Syed, September 2012.
The New York Times, Alia Syed, February 6, 2004.