Naeem Mohaiemen
Courtesy Naeem Mohaiemen, photo by Taslima Akhtar
Naeem Mohaiemen is a contemporary artist who uses film, photography, installation, and essays to research South Asia's postcolonial markers. He was born in 1969 in London, UK, and currently lives in New York.
In his work, Naeem Mohaiemen imagines rhizomatic families, malleable borders, and socialist utopias– beginning from postcolonial markers and then radiating outward to unlikely transnational alliances. In spite of underscoring a tendency toward misrecognition of allies, the hope of a future global left, against current categories of race, religion and nation, drives the work. He is author of Prisoners of Shothik Itihash (Kunsthalle Basel, 2014); editor of Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Drishtipat, 2010); and co-editor w/ Lorenzo Fusi of System Error: War is a Force that Gives us Meaning (Sylvana, 2007).
His work has recently been exhibited at SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul (2019); Mahmoud Darwish Museum, Ramallah (2018); Vasas Federation of Metalworkers' Union, Budapest (2018); Abdur Razzaq Foundation, Dhaka (2017) and documenta 14, Athens/ Kassel (2017). In Canada, he has previously shown at Hot Docs (2012), A Space Gallery (Images Festival, 2012), Gallery TPW (Images Festival, 2013), and VOX–Centre de l'image contemporaine (2016). Mohaiemen co-edited (with Lorenzo Fusi) System Error: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Papesse, 2006) and is currently co-editing (with Eszter Szakacs) Solidarity Must be Defended (Tranzit/ Van Abbe/ Salt/ Tricontinental, 2019). In New York, he was a member of Visible Collective (2002–07), 3rd i South Asian Film (2000–04) and Samar: South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection (1995–99); in Dhaka, he was a member of Drishtipat (2001–11) and Alal O Dulal (2012–17). He was a Guggenheim Fellow (2014) and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize (2018).
