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.”

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