Artist Statement/ Biography

Basharat Ali Syed's practice explores the collective catharsis inherent to post-colonial identity and examines the regressive dichotomy of ontological existence within a cross-border conflict nation. The work assembles to interrogate the variance of colonial legacies of structural violence and dispossession. The encounter with political displacement has disrupted conventional notions of belonging, compelling the cultivation of a sense of home in places that were never inherently home. His practice explores the remnants of memory in cultures of oppression while evoking ironic hybridity between reverence and violence.

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Basharat Ali Syed (b. 1996, Kashmir) is a New York-based artist who works at the intersection of installation, video, drawing, and sculpture. He employs 3D-printed objects, machine outputs, and diverse imaging technologies within an interdisciplinary framework to examine volatile narratives surrounding disinheritance, delineation of borders, and the bonds of mysticism. His practice systematically explores the antecedents of political and spiritual dissonance through a transnational lens. Tension is crafted between traditional fabrics and new media fabrications of cultural objects in his installations, contrasting old languages with new ones. Ali received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2023, and his work has been included in numerous group exhibitions. < BACK