Join Permindar Kaur and Alia Syed for the next phase of an ongoing conversation between the artists. Together they discuss their respective artistic practices, exploring notions around new networks, connections, collaborations and wider impact on artists of the South Asian diaspora.
Kaur and Syed highlight their current exhibitions/projects, as Syed takes us around her exhibition at Mimosa House, London, whilst Kaur reflects on her recent exhibition at 5 Howick Place, London, as well as current exhibitions at Long Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Alongside this, each artist will touch on the work that they are making presently.
The conversation is chaired by Nadia Thondrayen, Exhibitions Curator at John Hansard Gallery. With thanks to IKT International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art for support through their Harald Szeemann Grants.
Biographies:
Permindar Kaur is a sculpture/installation artist, whose approach to art is playful, using childlike objects to explore the territory of cultural identity, home and belonging. She uses simple forms, for instance furniture and toys. These objects resemble displaced domestic belongings, which have been distorted and manipulated to invoke the uncanny. They are deceptively familiar in their appearance and initially might remind the viewer of innocence, childhood and play belying their sinister undertones. Kaur completed her MA at Glasgow School of Art, she lives and works in the UK and Sweden. permindarkaur.com Kaur has exhibited internationally; major solo exhibitions include 5 Howick Place, London (2020), Long Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2021); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2021); Hiding Out, Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts (2014); Untitled, Berwick Gymnasium Art Gallery, Berwick (1999); Comfort of Little Places, Aspex, Portsmouth (1998) and Cold Comfort, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Mead Gallery, Coventry (1996). Major group exhibitions include Animals & Us, Turner Contemporary (2018); A Vision of Utopia, Spirella Building, Letchworth (2014); Spoilt Rotten: Young Curators, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Wales (2005); At Home with Art, Tate, London and touring (2000); Hot Air, Granship: Shizouka Arts Centre, Japan (1999); Pictura Britannica, Art from Britain, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1997); British Art Show, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff (1995).
Alia Syed is an experimental film maker whose work has been shown extensively in cinemas and galleries around the world. She is interested in storytelling, time and memory and the juncture of personal realities which she explores through different subjects positions in relation to culture, diaspora and location. Syed was born in Swansea, Wales and lives and works in London. She has been making experimental films in Britain for over 25 years.
Syed’s films have been shown at numerous institutions around the world including BBC Arts Online (currently), she is the Artist in Focus during Open City Documentary Festival (2021); Mimosa House, London (2021); The Triangle Space: Chelsea College of Arts (2014), Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2012-13, 5th Moscow Biennale (2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010); Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2009); XV Sydney Biennale (2006); Hayward Gallery, London (2005); Tate Britain, London (2003); Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, Scotland (2002); Iniva, London (2002); The New Art Gallery in Walsall (2002); and Tate Modern, London (2000), Reina Sophia Museum of Contemporary Art, Madrid (2009), Courtisane Festival, Belgium (2019) WKV, Stuttgart (2019) and Yale Centre for British Art (2019). Syed’s films have also been the subject of several solo exhibitions at Talwar Gallery in New York and New Delhi. Syed was the Artist in Focus at the Courtisane Festival in Belgium between 3 and 7 April 2019. Syed was nominated for the Jarman Award in 2015 and the Paul Hamlyn Artists Award in 2020.