# Alia Syed

Alia Syed (born 1964) is an experimental filmmaker and artist of Welsh-Indian descent.

## Biography

Born in Swansea, Wales, Syed earned her Bachelors in Fine Arts from the University of East London in 1987 and a Postgraduate degree in Mixed Media from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1992. She has taught and lectured at Central St. Martins and the 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), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, 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 City and in New Delhi. Syed lives and works in London, UK.
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. Syed has said, “I am interested in language; we construct ourselves through language; it 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 [am] interested in what happens when you hold more than one ‘culture’ within you at any given time.”

## Selected exhibitions
### Solo exhibitions
#### 2019

    Talwar Gallery, Meta Incognita: Missive II, New York, NY, US

#### 2018

    LUX, Wallpaper, London, UK

#### 2017

    Talwar Gallery, On a wing and a prayer, New York, NY, US

#### 2013

    Talwar Gallery, Panopticon Letters: Missive I, New York, NY, US

#### 2012

    Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Eating Grass, Los Angeles, CA, US

#### 2010

    Talwar Gallery, Wallpaper, New York, NY, US

#### 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, NY, US

#### 2006

    Millais Gallery, Southampton, UK

#### 2005

    Arts Depot, 1001100111001, London, UK, Eating Grass

#### 2004

    Talwar Gallery, Eating Grass, New York, NY, US

#### 2003

    Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA), London, UK
    Talwar Gallery, New York, NY, US

#### 2002

    Jigar, a retrospective of Alia Syed's film works
    (February --March) The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK
    (February --March) The Space Gallery at InIVA, London, UK
    (June --August) Turnpike Gallery, Manchester, UK
    (June --September) Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland

### Selected other exhibitions
#### 2021

    Talwar Gallery, as the wind blows, New York, NY, US

#### 2019

    Yale Center of British Art, Migrating Worlds: The Art of the Moving Image in Britain, New Haven, US

#### 2018

    Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delirium Equilibrium, New Delhi, India
    Lahore Biennale 01, Lahore, Pakistan

#### 2016

    Van Every/Smith Museum Galleries, Contents Under Pressure, Davidson, North Carolina, US

#### 2015

    Hangar, GHOSTS, Lisbon, Portugal

#### 2014

    Pumphouse Gallery, You cannot step twice into the same river, London, UK
    Solyanka State Gallery, PARAJANOV, Moscow, Russia

#### 2013

    5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia

#### 2011

    Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Ffilm 3, Swansea, UK

#### 2010

    Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), On Line, curated by Connie Butler and Catherine de Zegher, New York, NY, US

#### 2009

    Talwar Gallery, Excerpts from Diary Pages, New York, NY, US

#### 2006

    XV Sydney Biennale, Zones of Contact, Sydney, Australia

#### 2005

    Hayward Gallery, BALTIC, The British Art Show, touring show, UK
    Arts Depot, 1001100111001, London, UK
    Talwar Gallery, (desi)re, New York, NY, US

#### 2003

    Tate Britain, A Century of Artists' Film in Britain, London, UK

## Film works

2019: Meta Incognita: Missive II
2016: On a wing and a prayer (text by David Herd)
2010–2013: Panopticon Letters: Missive I
2008–2011: Priya
2006–2011: A Story Told
2010: Wallpaper
2005: LA Diary
2003: Eating Grass
2001: Spoken Diary
1994: The Watershed
1991: Fatima's Letter
1989: Three Paces, Swan
1987: Unfolding
1985: Durga

## Selected honors, lectures and screenings

2010- Tate Britain, Conversation Pieces, London, UK
2005- Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (LACMA), Eating Grass, Los Angeles, CA
2000- Tate Modern, Watershed in Performing Bodies, London, UK
1997- Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Fatima's Letter, London, UK
1996- Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Watershed in Pandemonium, London, UK
1994- Ikon Gallery, Fatima's Letter in Beyond Destination, Birmingham, UK
1991- Tate Gallery, Fatima's Letter in 25 years of British Avant Garde, London, UK