In 2018 I was invited to a 2 week residency at a cement factory in Khushab, Pakistan. What came out of the initial research was that most of the cement produced there is used for what is known as the CPEC corridor, a modern age silk route, part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative, connecting China’s Xinjiang province to Gwadar port in Pakistan. Following my time in Berlin in 2024, Concrete and concrete architecture, from the Bauhaus to Brutalist design, gained intellectual curiosity and emotional charge, in the face of the images of gray rubble dust we see in the destruction of Gaza, (and Ukraine). This has become important as a metaphor. I would like to use the Dover Prize funding to continue this research into concrete as a material, filming limestone kilns, concrete production and landscape extraction for this neo imperialist project. Most of the UK’s concrete is produced within the country, and will be easy to access. I don’t have absolute clarity on the outcome yet, but I imagine it will be film, sculptural installation, drawings and photos, possibly realised alongside a book project. My work with glass recently has brought clarity to the fact that I would like to pursue my interest in material as metaphor, how we create meaning in our world, of human invention and ambition alongside failure, with a parallel, underlying critique, within a historical backdrop, of the environmental ramifications today. This is not a documentary project, I wish to find a poetic and artistic means to tell this story. The funds will be used for studio rent, artist fee, material experiments, travel, organised online and in person conversations with architects, and conservators, as well as material to produce artistic outcomes. A clear breakdown and budget can be shared at a later date.
I have worked across a range of locations, situations, and demographics in the past 30 years as an artist. Since 1996, I have consistently taught art at BA and MA levels, internationally. I am therefore sensitive to place and have the tools for meaning creation within a public realm. From initial research I understand that Darlington has a number of concrete and aggregate production plants. It would be a fundamental starting point, to build these relationships, across businesses and art in the city. To bring out the invisible into a playful, poetic and educational way into the imagination of the city, to think and make collectively and collaboratively. The conversations with architects and engineers in Darlington would be a way to start establishing links and possible processes.
I work with sculptural installation, photography, drawing and collage. Drawing on the city and its collective memory, within a backdrop of economic globalisation, migration, state power and fragmented histories, I activate the dysfunctional, the sorrowful, the futile and the funny. The works stand as inconvenient witnesses to time and place, critically exploring material & form in deliberately awkward works. I have an abiding interest in examining the specificity of place, amplifying my perpetual discomfort as both observer and participant. In the past two years, I have been working with blown glass, bringing into poetic and metaphoric contact, two very different materials to articulate a reciprocal entanglement. I blow glass and place it on a wooden surface while still molten and transforming. The process burns the wood with the heat of the glass, and the glass is forced to take the shape of the wood. I see this reciprocity as an integral part of my current enquiry into climate and political migration, exile and living with difference, (and Eduard Glissant’s ideas of the archipelago). The glass despite its heat/rage bends to the will of the wood that hosts it, and although it can sustain high heat, it remains fragile and vulnerable to power. As I make this work, I consider estuaries that host bio diversity, merging a saline body of water the river, mangrove roots, that adapt to brackish water, through flexibility and change. Selected exhibitions include: Manzar: National Museum of Doha Qatar (2024), Aftermath, KitForm, Bristol (2024), Your Tongue in My Mouth (solo), Mirror, Plymouth (2022), Can you Hear my Voice? Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, (2021) Skyfall, (solo) Karachi, Pakistan (2020). The Centre of Gravity, Bristol, UK, (2020), In the Open and in Stealth MACBA, Barcelona, Spain (2018), welcome to what we took from is the state, Queens Museum, New York, USA (2017), The Great Game, Irani Pavilion, Venice Biennale, (2015), Mining Warm Data, Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2016) Burning Down the House, Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, (2014). Where Three Dreams Cross, Whitechapel Gallery, London, (2010) The Empire Strikes Back, The Saatchi Gallery, London (2010)
I have a BFA degree in Visual Arts from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi (1995). I graduated with a major in Sculpture, and a minor in Printmaking. I received an MFA in Creative Practice (2010) from Transart Institute, which was a low residency program that is nomadic. It was affiliated with Krems University in Austria, and took place in Berlin, Germany. Prior to this, I also have a Bachelors in Commerce, from Karachi (1990).
I have received several grants and awards, most recently the year long DAAD Artist in Berlin Program, as a Visual Arts Awardee (2024-2025). This fellowship includes a stipend for a year in Berlin. In 2023 I received the Arts Council DYCP award (£12000) and in 2012 I was one of 5 awardees for the Abraaj Group Art Prize ($100000). Apart from these, I have also been awarded the Nigah Award for photo works (2016), and the Charles Wallace Fellowship towards a residency at Gasworks in 2000.
I have had a studio at Spike Island since I moved to the UK in 2015. The first studio I set up was a collective in 1995, with two fellow graduates in Karachi. This was called Studio 46/A, and served as a place for our practices as well as for other artists to collaborate and theatre practitioners to rehearse in. Previously, I have been involved with the Triangle Arts network for International studios and was part of the team for the Vasl Arts Collective (2001)first in Karachi, then entirely responsible for Vasl Lahore (2006-7) when I moved to Lahore. During this time and after, I organized International Artists residencies, and opportunities for students, both at BA and MA level, in Lahore through projects such as 13 Satellites of Lahore, Vasl Residency etc. In 1999-2004, I collaborated with artist Shilpa Gupta, towards a project called aar paar, which has subsequently been shown internationally (Queens Museum) and written about critically (Karin Zitzevitz)
I have shown in many International Biennales, such as Gwangju Biennale 2014 (curated by Jessica Morgan), The Venice Biennale (Irani Pavillion, The Great Game, 2015) Karachi Biennale (2017) , Lahore Biennale (2018), and will be showing in the Kochi Biennale in December 2025 (curated by Nikhil Chopra), with a new commission called The Bombay Duck.
Yes, I have work in public collections such as : Devi Art Foundation (Delhi), Kiran Nadar Museum (Delhi), Saatchi Collection (London), Art Jameel (Dubai), Art Institute of Chicago, (USA)
Yes my work has been written about and published in numerous books, catalogues, journals and newspapers.
A full list is available on my website as part of my CV.
Some examples include:
Sohail, Aziz. Witnessing from Afar: making sense of the Karachi Biennale. 4A Papers Issue 4, Center for contemporary Asian Art, Australia. April 2018. http://www.4a.com.au/4a_papers_article/witnessing-afar-making-sense-karachi-biennale/
Hashmi, Salima, Khosla, Martand (Authors). The Eye Still Seeks: Pakistani Contemporary Art. Penguin Studio, 2015
Sullivan, Graeme. Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual Arts. Los Angeles: Sage Publications 2016
Dalmia, Yashodhara, and Salima Hashmi. Memory, Metaphor, Mutations: Contemporary Art of India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Oxford University Press (2007)
Hashmi, Salima. Unveiling the Visible: Lives and Works of Women Artists of Pakistan. Islamabad: ActionAid Pakistan (2002)
Sheikh, Saira. “Huma Mulji in Conversation with Saira Sheikh”. ArtNow, Contemporary Art of Pakistan, April 2013
Kenndy, Randy. Contradiction remains vital to Paksitan and its art, New York Times, 2009
Cotter, Holand, Activist Energy with a Light Touch, The New York Times, 2009
I am represented by Project 88, Mumbai India, since 2010.
I have held solo shows as well as been represented in group shows, and art fairs, e.g. Frieze London, Art Dubai, Frieze New York.
Gasworks Residency London (2000)
Khoj International Artists Program (1999)
Pioneer Cement Factory Residency (2016)
DAAD Kunstlerprogramme, (Visual Arts Fellow) 2024-25
Address: 11 Evans Close, Bristol, Somerset, BS4 4SJ, GB
