Naeem Mohaiemen (born 1969) uses film, photography, installation, and essays to research South Asia's postcolonial markers (the

Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, or the First Kashmir War, was a war fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four Indo-Pakistani wars that was fought between th ...

and the

Bangladesh Liberation War The Bangladesh Liberation War ( bn, মুক্তিযুদ্ধ, , also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh) was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali ...

of 1971). His projects on the 1970s revolutionary left explores the role of misrecognition within global solidarity. He is a member of the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the I ...

Independent Film Council.

Education

Mohaiemen graduated from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of highe ...

in 1993 with a BA in economics and concentration in history. He was a member of Oberlin College's Board of Trustees (1994–1996). He received a PhD in anthropology in 2019 from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and is Associate Professor of Visual Arts there.

Films

* ''Tripoli Cancelled'' (2017), premiered ''at

Documenta 14 documenta 14 was the fourteenth edition of the art exhibition documenta and took place in 2017 in both Kassel, Germany, its traditional home, and Athens, Greece. It was held first in Athens from 8 April to 16 July, and in Kassel from 10 June ...

''in Athens. British premiere at the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

London Film Festival.
BFI London Film festival: Material Evidence American premiere at Museum of Modern Art, New York. *''Two Meetings and a Funeral'' (2017), premiered ''at

''in Kassel (which derives from ''The Young Man Was'' project). British premiere at Tate Britain as part of 2018 Turner Prize shortlist. American premiere at Art Institute of Chicago. The Young Man Was *Part 4: ''Abu Ammar is Coming'' (2016) – examines a photograph of five men who were supposedly Bangladeshi and affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the early 1980s, questioning how contemporary relations between the involved nations might be reshaped. *Part 3: ''Last Man in Dhaka Central'' (2015) – premiered at the 56th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

as part of "All The World's Futures" curated by Okwui Enwezor. *Part 2: ''Afsan's Long Day'' (2014) – premiered at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

in New York as part of "Doc Fortnight". It had a festival premiere at

Oberhausen Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...

and a British premiere at the

London Film Festival. *Part 1:

United Red Army The was a militant organization, that operated in Japan between July 1971 and March 1972. The URA was formed as the result of a merger that began on 13 July 1971 between two extremist groups, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist , led in 1971 by Tsuneo ...

(2011) – about Japan Airlines Flight 472 (1977) Hijacking in

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest ...

, premiered at

Sharjah Biennial The Sharjah Biennial is a large-scale contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The first Sharjah Biennial took place in 1993, and was organized by the Sharjah Department of Cul ...

Hot Docs The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...

, and

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 ti ...

(IDFA), has shown at

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New S ...

and is in the permanent collection of the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

. Prisoners of Shothik Itihash *''Der Weisse Engel'' (2008) *''Rankin Street 1953'' (2009) Visible Collective: Disappeared in America (2002–2006) *''Patriot Story'' (2004, with Jawad Metni) *''Fear of Flying'' (2005, with Anjali Malhotra) *''Lingering: Twenty'' (2005, with Sehban Zaidi) *''Invisible Man'' (2006) *''White Teeth'' (2011)

Exhibitions

Chapters from Mohaiemen's project on the 1970s revolutionary left ("The Young Man Was") have exhibited at the

Mahmoud Darwish Mahmoud Darwish ( ar, محمود درويش, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine ...

Museum
Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Foundation
Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Bengal Foundation Shilpalay, Chobi Mela, Documenta 14, Kiran Nadar Museum, Museum of Modern Art New York, British Museum, Tate Britain,

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...

(New York),

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Frieze London takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. In the US, the fair ran on New York's Randall's Island from 2012–19 and in ...

(London), MUAC Mexico City, the 56th Venice Biennial, and the Lahore, Sharjah, Marrakech, and Eva (Ireland) Biennials. Mohaiemen co-founded Visible Collective, a collective of New York-based artists and lawyers investigating post-

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

security panic. Visible's work exhibited internationally, including the 2006

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...

of American Art ("Wrong Gallery" room) and L'institut des cultures d'Islam in Paris. His solo projects have looked at military coups ("My Mobile Weighs A Ton" at Dhaka Gallery Chitrak), surveillance ("Otondro Prohori, Guarding Who?", Chobi Mela V at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy), Indian partition ("Kazi in Nomansland" at Dubai Third Line), architectural nationalism ("Penn Station Kills Me" at Exit Art), and dueling leftist and Islamist politics ("Live True Life or Die Trying" at Cue Art Foundation, New York).

Writing

Mohaiemen is author of ''Prisoners of Shothik Itihash''. He edited the anthologies ''Between Ashes and Hope:

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts ( bn, পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম, Parbotto Chottogram), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeast ...

in the blind spot of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

nationalism'', ''Collectives in atomised time'', He was the primary critic of ''Dead Reckoning'', a book by

Sarmila Bose Sarmila Bose is an Indian-American journalist and academic. She has served as a senior research associate at the Centre for International Studies in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. She is th ...

on the

1971 war The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decemb ...

. His response was cited by the ''BBC'' and published in ''Economic & Political Weekly'' ("Waiting for a real reckoning on 1971"). Bose responded to his remarks in the same periodical, followed by a rebuttal from Mohaiemen. Essays on Bangladesh history include"Muktijuddho: Polyphony of the Ocean", "Accelerated Media and the 1971 Genocide", "Musee Guimet as Proxy Fight", "Mujtaba Ali: Amphibian Man" (''The Rest of Now'', Rana Dasgupta ed.), "Mujib Coat" (''Bidoun'' journal), and "Everybody wants to be Singapore" (''Carlos Motta’s The Good Life''). He wrote the chapter on religious and ethnic minorities in the Ain o Salish Kendro Annual Report for Bangladesh. Essays on diaspora include "Known unknowns of the class war" (''Margins'', Asian American Writers Workshop),"The skin I'm in: Afro-Bengali solidarity and possible futures" (''Margins'', Asian American Writers Workshop), "Beirut, Silver Porsche Illusion" (''Men of the Global South'', Zed Books), "Why Mahmud Can’t Be a Pilot" (''Nobody Passes: Rejecting the rules of Gender and Conformity'', Seal Press), and "No Exit" (''Asian Superhero Comics'', New Press). Essays on culture include "Islamic Roots of HipHop" (''Sound Unbound'',

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Press; Runner Up for Villem Flusser Theory Award), "Adman blues become artist liberation" (''Indian Highway'', curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist) and "At the coed dance " (''Art Lies: Death of the Curator'').

Awards

*2014:

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowships to professionals who have demonstrated exceptional ...

*2018:

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

nominee *Shortlisted for the 2009 Villem Flusser Award and the 2019

Herb Alpert Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...

Award.

References

External links

*
Academia

Conversation about Naeem Mohaiemen's methodology and artistic practice, 2019
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohaiemen, Naeem 1969 births Living people Bangladeshi male writers Bangladeshi artists Bangladeshi film directors Bangladeshi academics Oberlin College alumni Columbia University alumni Columbia University faculty