Alia Ali

Alia Ali (1985) is a Yemeni-Bosnian-American multi-media artist. Having travelled to sixty-three countries, lived in seven and grown up among five languages, her most comfortable mode of communication is through image and multi-sensory mediums. Her extensive travels have led her to process the world through interactive experiences and the belief that the interpretation of verbal and written language has dis-served particular communities and presents more of a threat than a means of understanding.

It is for this reason that Alia's aesthetic interests stem from people, place, and the processes which unite and divide us, all at once. Her work reflects on the politics and poetics of contested notions surrounding the topics of identity, physical borders, universality, mental/physical spaces of confinement, and the inherent dualism that exists in everything. Her work blurs the lines between what we claim to be objective and subjective, illusion and reality, truth and interpretation.

Alia explores cultures, conflicts and borders through the mediums of photography, textile and the processes of making each. Her projects have most taken her to Oaxaca, Mexico; Bokhara, Uzbekistan; Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Sapa, Vietnam; Kyoto, Japan; Udaipur, India; and Nairobi, Kenya.

Alia holds a BA in Studio Art and Middle Eastern Studies from Wellesley College and is currently based in Los Angeles. Her work has most recently been exhibited at the Peter Sillem Gallery (Frankfurt), Gulf Photo Plus (Dubai) Galerie Siniya28 (Marrakech), Lianzhou Photo Festival (Lianzhou, China) and the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans.