Artist Bani Abidi reflects on key moments of her twenty-five-year-old art practice. She considers the role that particular geographies and political timelines have played in her imagination, intellectual tendencies, and studio work.
Shaped by years of living across multiple cities—from Karachi to Chicago, Lahore, Delhi, and ultimately Berlin—and by the social relationships and historical transformations encountered in each, Abidi’s lived context has evolved dramatically over time. She shares her thoughts about both the values and challenges of an itinerant sense of belonging and a widely international exhibition history.
Bani Abidi
Bani Abidi is a multidisciplinary artist based between Karachi and Berlin. Her work explores politics, identity, and the absurdity of power, working across video, photography, sound, and installation. She studied Visual Arts at the National College of Arts, Lahore, and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Blending documentary, performance, and fiction, she often uses both actors and non-actors to reveal the tensions between authority and individuality, transforming everyday scenes into incisive social critique. Bani has exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at Birzeit University Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Sharjah Art Foundation, and Gropius Bau, Berlin.