Ayshia Taskin

Ayshia Taskin (née Muezzin) (born July, 1986) is a Scottish-Cypriot curator and intermedia artist using printmaking, sculpture, Hi/Lo Tech, New Media, Live Art, and 2D methods in her artwork.
Born to a Turkish Cypriots father and Scottish people, Ayshia mostly grew up and lived in Kyrenia, Cyprus Northern Cyprus where she and her siblings attended school. Ayshia returned to Scotland as a young adult to pursue a career in contemporary art. Ayshia’s artistic foundation started with drawing and painting, but her style and techniques evolved to include a mix of digital, non-traditional, performance, and 2D processes.
Ayshia studied Intermedia and Contemporary Art Practice at The University of Edinburgh and has been known to develop dynamic, collaborative projects using interdisciplinary methods from improvised performances for collaborative New Media pieces. Her curatorial style focuses on bringing diverse artists together, whether emerging or mid-career, and has been known to use non-hierarchical and explorative methods merged with technology.
Dynamism and experimentation are intrinsic to Ayshia’s practice, where she uses instructive Fluxus word-play and aesthetic-play. Within her practice, Ayshia explores the importance of playfulness in making and experiencing art where she considers aesthetic-play as a dynamic yet critical method of creative practice that does not only have to be performance-based but can include any art form. Once Ayshia started including playfulness in her practice, along with Fluxus ideas, she started merging visceral actions with digital actions, happenings and techniques. Ayshia's interest in how performance art affects audience consciousness led her to write on the subject and how this transformation happens through participatory and collaborative art practices and authored short essay’s exploring such concepts. As a 21st century artist, Ayshia’s processes, ideas, and projects include an international yet local and trans-disciplinary approach to making art with an overall philosophy to use the varied forms of technology and organic matter. 
Cypro-Futurism, a concept developed by Ayshia in 2019, and is the intersection of technology with Near Eastern Cypriot mythology and culture. Ayshia's artist-book 'The Samurai Prophecy' is based on the concept of Cypro-Futurism, where a 'sentient' vegetable, mainly found in Cypriot, African, Near Eastern and Levantine culture, is the focus of the story. Works continuing with the Cypro-Futurist themes include Aphrodite's Spaceship-Ishtar's Space Pod: How one goddess became the other, 2021.
The Anonymous Train Artist project, developed by Ayshia featured on BBC News (TV channel) Timeline in 2017 was a project funded by ScotRail (National Express)|ScotRail to assist commuters to engage with public art through drawing. During the duration of the project, Ayshia drew around 500 illustrations which were either given to strangers, exchanged or left on the train.
Ayshia’s works shown in Venice Surfaces Festival and The Festival of Contemporary Art in Athens for Whistle Project, in the USA at Ely Centre for Contemporary Art, Screen-print Biennial, and the Transcultural Exchange in Boston, Turkey, Netherlands, Czech Republic, England, Scotland and web-based biennales like the noemata.net open-source web art project and the Berlin-UK Arthousehause.
Category:1986 births
Category:Scottish curators
Category:Scottish artists