September 10–December 6, 2015
Keynote presentation: October 15, 6pm
(Alumnae Lounge)
Tufts University Art Gallery
Aidekman Arts Center
40 Talbot Avenue
Medford, MA 02155
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11–5pm,
Thursdays until 8pm
T +617 627 3518
F +617 627 3121
Internationally recognized artist Shahzia Sikander presents her first immersive animation, Parallax, with music by composer Du Yun, first shown at the Sharjah Biennale in 2013. Related paintings, drawings, and photographs are also included in the Tufts exhibition.
Inspired by the U.A.E.’s unique geography and culture at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, Sikander’s 15-minute animation is constructed from hundreds of drawings and paintings in which abstract, representational, and textual forms coexist and jostle for domination. Themes of dissonance and disruption echo the power tensions that have characterized the region’s modern history as a British protectorate and the U.A.E.’s establishment as a nation state in 1971.
A book published by the Tufts University Art Gallery, with an artist’s interview by Amy Schlegel, a conversation between Sikander and composer Du Yun, and essays by Ayesha Jalal and Sara Raza, is forthcoming in the spring of 2016.