Biography

Basma Al Sharif works with photography, film, video, sound, text and language to explore visual communication at an intuitive level.

Using language as a response to images and images as a response to the aesthetic of text, she attempts to reveal the unreliability of facts, history, numbers, and statistics. Al Sharif's work wavers between fiction and fantasy to experiment with non-linear narratives that explore subjective experiences in relation to political landscapes. At the 9th Sharjah Biennial she presented the video We Began by Measuring Distance (2009) for which she received a Biennial Prize.

Al Sharif’s work has been shown in numerous events and film festivals internationally including Manifesta, Kassel (2010), the Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto (2010), The London Palestine Film Festival, London (2010), Rencontres Internationales, Paris (2009), the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago (2009), the Festival International Cinéma Méditerranéen, Montpellier (2009), DocuDays 9: Beirut International Documentary Festival, Beirut (2009), The Jerusalem Show, Jerusalem (2008), Images du Moyen-Orient Musee Jeu Du Paume, Paris (2007), ARTEAST Cinema East Film Festival, New York (2007) and Gallery Peep, Sweden (2004) where she was a guest student at the Malmö Art Academy, Lund University. She was a recipient of the Fundación Marcelino Botín Visual Arts Grant in 2009-2010.

Born in Kuwait of Palestinian origin, Basma Al Sharif received an MFA from the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, Chicago, specialising in photography, film and video. She has also lectured at the University of Illinois, Chicago (2005-07), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2008) and the American University of Cairo (2008).  Al Sharif currently lives and works in Beirut.

October 2010