Alia Ali

Cultures of Resistance Awardee — Yemen

Alia Ali (Arabic: عاليه علي) is a Yemeni-Bosnian-US multimedia artist who lived in and between seven countries and grew up among five languages. Her work incorporates photography, video, and installation. Her travels have led her to process the world through interactive experiences, and she believes that the damage of translation and interpretation of written language has not served particular communities, resulting in the threat of their exclusion, rather than a means of understanding. Ali’s work reflects on the politics of contested notions of linguistics, identity, borders, universality, colonization, mental/physical confinement, and the inherent dualism that exists in each of them. 

Ali received a Cultures of Resistance Award (CoR Award) and is using the award for a futuristic, experiential video installation to explore and generate radical narratives of Yemeni selfhood. This project will evolve from personal narratives and sites of Yemeni cultural production through its diaspora.

Visit her website here.

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