Qasim Riza Shaheen (born 1971) is a British artist and writer based in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. Working across participatory performance, installation, film and photography, Shaheen's practice explores memory, notions of beauty, sexuality, love and, more broadly, fundamental concerns about human nature.
"In films, video performances, photographs and mixed-media drawings, Qasim Riza Shaheen presents his affecting reflections on love and loss...For him, self-portraiture is more a matter of imaginative self-creation than any pretence of authentic self-definition...His enactments of queer romance, straight social alienation, and the universal melodramas of unrequited desire are choreographed with painful sensitivity."
Career
Qasim Riza Shaheen's work has been exhibited and programmed widely, including at Asia Contemporary Art Week, New York;
Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...
, Manchester; mac in Birmingham;
Southbank Centre, London; SPILL Festival of Performance, London; Brighton International Festival;
Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, London;
Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom.
Every two years, the city of Liverpool hosts an extensive range of artworks, projects, and a programme of events. The biennial commissions leading ...
;
Arnolfini
Arnolfini is an international arts centre and gallery in Bristol, England. It has a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, artist's performance, music and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and cinema. There is also a ...
, Bristol;
National Review of Live Art, Glasgow, Scotland; La Boral, Gijon; Trouble Festival, Les Halles, Brussels; CityArts and
Project Arts Centre, Dublin; Corona Cork Film Festival, Ireland;
Castlefield Gallery
The Castlefield Gallery is an art gallery in Manchester, England, located at 2 Hewitt Street, Knott Mill, Manchester. The gallery, a resource for contemporary visual artists
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, print ...
, Manchester; Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia; and Alhamra National Gallery in Lahore, Pakistan, where he was invited as an international resident artist and subsequently as an associate professor at the prestigious
National College of Arts
The National College of Arts (colloquially known as NCA) is a public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Overview
National College of Arts - A Federal Chartered Institute is the oldest art school in Pakistan and the second oldest i ...
in Lahore and Islamabad.
Prizes and awards
Qasim Riza Shaheen has received several
Arts Council of England
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...
bursaries as well as international commissions. He is featured on the British Council's Theatre and Dance network which promotes the best of UK performing arts. He was nominated for the Northern Art Prize in 2010. He has had several acquisitions made on his work by museums, galleries and private collectors.
Artist Publications & Articles
''The last known pose: Essays and reflections on the works of Qasim Riza Shaheen'' – forthcoming Cornerhouse publication 2018 Hushlak M. A & Pearl M. (Eds.)
''(I am)mute(with love)'',
Live Art Development Agency
Live Art Development Agency, also commonly known by its acronym LADA, is a publicly funded arts organisation and registered charity founded in London in 1999 by Lois Keidan and Catherine Ugwu. LADA provides professional advice for artists as wel ...
, London (forthcoming DVD release 2017)
''MyNoir: Everybody Says I'm Fine'' in Filmint.
''Misplaced Memoirs'' in Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre and Performance, Vol 2, No 2 (Intellect, August 2012) p. 155.
''Nine acts of reciprocity''. Oldham: Gallery Oldham, 2010.
''Liliquoi Blue: God made me a boy.'' Dublin: CityArts, 2010.
''‘The NRLA Ball (Both Touching the Sky and Eating Dust…)''’ in
National Review of Live Art 1979–2010: a personal history, Ed. Dee Heddon. Glasgow: NRLA, 2010. p.90.
''‘Queer courtesan (Sixteen processes of beautification)’'', South Asian Popular Culture, Vol 7, No 3, Routledge (October 2009) p.211-215.
''Stains & Stencils''. Cork: Cork International Film Festival, 2009.
''Khusra: Stains & Stencils''. Manchester: Shisha/Cornerhouse Publications, 2007.
''Only the moon to play with''. Manchester:
Arts Council England, 2004.
Kathak classical dance art
Qasim Riza Shaheen was initiated as formal dance disciple of Pakistani
Kathak
Kathak ( hi, कथक; ur, کتھک) is one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance. It is the classical dance from of Uttar Pradesh. The origin of Kathak is traditionally attributed to the traveling bards in ancient northern Ind ...
dancer Nahid Siddiqui (Disciple of Maharaj Kathak &
Pandit Birju Maharaj
Pandit Birju Maharaj (born Brijmohan Nath Mishra; 4 February 1938 – 16 January 2022) was an Indian dancer, composer, singer, child molester and exponent of the Lucknow "Kalka-Bindadin" Gharana of Kathak dance in India. He was a descendant of ...
) in the 1990s and continues to be under her tutelage to date. He has performed internationally with Nahid Siddiqui and Company as a dancer at venues including the South Bank Centre, London,
Royal Albert Hall, London and at
Auditorium Parco della Musica
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, communit ...
, Rome, Italy. His solo dance work has been showcased at the British Dance Edition 2008 held in Liverpool.
References
External links
Marina Abramovic, Wendy Ramshaw, Qasim Riza ShaheenAutoportraits in love like conditionsQasim Riza Shaheen – The last known poseBritish Council – Artist profileTwelve Gates Arts: Works BiographyQueer Contact Artist blog – Qasim Riza ShaheenProfiles , Diaspora: Qasim Riza ShaheenAsia Contemporary Art Week 2015Qasim Riza Shaheen: Autoportraits in love-like conditions Sophia Al-Maria: Virgin with a MemoryQasim Riza Shaheen: Autoportraits In Love-like Conditions
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaheen, Qasim Riza
1971 births
Living people
Artists from Manchester
British contemporary artists
British performance artists
Body art
British male dancers
Performers of Indian classical dance