Aqsa Arif
b. Pakistan
Lives and works in Glasgow
Aqsa Arif, Sohni-Heera, multi-media installation, various sizes, 2023
Working across film, installation and poetry, Aqsa Arif explores identity disruption, displacement, migration and the process of healing through archetypal narratives. As a Pakistani refugee to Scotland, she experienced life with the split of two cultural identities, a polarity underpinning her work.
In Marvi and the Churail Arif explores two particular female archetypes in South Asian folktales in this new film installation: the moral heroine Umar Marvi from the Seven Queens of Sindh and the ghost-witch Churail told in horror stories. Framed ornately by a bejewelled structure around the screens, Arif’s two-channel dialogic film articulates the multiplicity of women and unites their anti-patriarchal stories.
Aqsa Arif has presented work at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, (Glasgow, 2023-24), UAL Decolonising Arts Institute, 2022-24, Jupiter Artland, (Edinburgh, 2022)Gallery of Modern Art, (Glasgow 2021-22) and, Tate Modern, (London, 2019)
Jerwood Survey III
Workshop: Aqsa Arif
Links :
https://www.aqsaarif.com/
