Alia Syed

Education

Slade School of Fine Artist

Career

Born in Swansea, Wales, Syed earned her Bachelors in Fine Arts from University of East London in 1987 and a Postgraduate degree in Mixed Media from Slade School of Fine Art in 1992. Over the past two decades, she has taught and lectured at Central Saint Martins and 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) in Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, 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 and in New Delhi.

Syed lives and works in London, United Kingdom. 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.

Commenting on her own work, Syed has said, “I am interested in language. We construct ourselves through language.

lieutenant 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 interested in what happens when you hold more than one ‘culture’ within you at any given time.” Solo Exhibitions 2013:- Talwar Gallery, Panopticon Letters: Missive I, New York, New York, United States Selected Other Exhibitions Talwar Gallery, Excerpts from Diary Pages, New York, New York, United States Tate Britain, A Century of Artists" Film in Britain, London, United Kingdom.

Achievements

• 2013:- Talwar Gallery, Panopticon Letters: Missive I, New York, New York, United States 2012-2013:- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Eating Grass, Los Angeles, California, United States 2010:- Talwar Gallery, Wallpaper, New York, New York, United States 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, New York, United States 2006:- Millais Gallery, Southampton, United Kingdom 2004:- Talwar Gallery, Eating Grass, New York, New York, United States 2003:- Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA), London, United Kingdom; Talwar Gallery, New York, New York, United States 2002:- Jigar, a retrospective of Alia Syed"s film works at The New Art Gallery Walsall, United Kingdom; The Space Gallery at InIVA, London, United Kingdom; Turnpike Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom. Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland 2011:- Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Ffilm 3, Swansea, United Kingdom 2010:- Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), On Lincolnshire, curated by Connie Butler and Catherine de Zegher, New York, New York, United States 2009:- Talwar Gallery, Excerpts from Diary Pages, New York, New York, United States 2006:- XV Sydney Biennale, Zones of Contact, Sydney, Australia 2005:- Hayward Gallery, BALTIC, The British Art Show, touring show, United Kingdom. Arts Depot, 1001100111001, London, United Kingdom Talwar Gallery, (desi)re, New York, New York, United States 2003:- Tate Britain, A Century of Artists" Film in Britain, London, United Kingdom.