In April and May 2022 Bangladesh artist Preema Nazia Andaleeb is an artist-in-residence at Studio 88. She is a prolific and provocative multidisciplinary visual artist and is also an entrepreneur and activist. Her tactile imagery, contrasting approach to create visual tension is an instinctive, intuitive and powerful weapon to challenge stereo typical thinking.
Images (L–R): Artwork ‘The Eye’; Preema in her studio, work-in-progress; poster for the artist talk and workshop.
During her 25 years of art practice Preema has been awarded with major residency grants, workshops invitations and seminars funds all over the world, such as Sanskrit Art Residency (India), Fukuaka Artist Residency (Japan), Geoge Keyt Artists Residency (Sri Lanka), International Performance Art Residency (Venice), Collective Signatures performance marathon (Spain), and Performance Reproduction (Belgium). Along with 20 solo exhibitions, her works has been featured in many group exhibitions round the globe in prestigious galleries and museums (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, Canada, USA, UK, Turkey, Morocco, and Uzbekistan).
Preema has also enriched her career by representing Bangladesh Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale 2019. Her innovative and disruptive body of works has been featured in Florence Biennale (2019–2021), Asian Art Biennale (2010–2018) , Tashkent Biennale, Istanbul Biennale, and Venice International Art Expo (2010, 2012, 2014), along with prestigious art fairs, such as Art Basel Miami 2012, Tuyup Art Fair/Istanbul 2014, Dubai Art Festival 2016, Dhaka Art Summit (2012 -2018), and Delhi International Art Festival in 2018–2019. She has been representing Bangladesh Creative Industry at the recognised Cannes Lions Creative Festival in France since 2014 as Director and Creative Editor of Bangladesh Brand Forum. Preema Nazia is the chair of Preema Arte Foundation, President of Women in Leadership (WIL), Founder Bangladesh Creative Forum.
“In the name of art one can do almost anything and everything.”
Preema Nazia Andaleeb
Preema Nazia Andaleeb’s aims for the residency
My creative inspirations come from various social, environmental, political, and personal experiences and influences. Exchanging culture through changing narratives helps me to dig down to the core, and that’s how my artistic process evolves on a different level over the years. I believe that, art has no limitations; and that, I am not a prisoner of art. Therefore, destroying my own creation to create a new dimension has given me the opportunity to experiment the possibilities with new media and techniques that have created my own visual language. It is my process of art and growth as an artist too.
Learning from a new/different culture and environment has made me travel different parts of the world, which has given me an enormous opportunity, as well as the courage, to challenge my ability as an artist, to challenge stereotypical ideas, beliefs and norms. I am neither resistant nor hesitant to break the rules. Therefore, each and every breakdown has been my breakthrough. My art has no limits, nor does it have its own territory, it’s fluid and free. So, my idea of expression is freedom. In my case this has been the power of my soul to thrive and strive as an artist of my own desire, purpose and goal. Because in the name of art one can do almost anything and everything. Therefore, my art is unpredictable, my performance is the life itself and my practice, which is not a process but rather it declares the possibility without any boundary. I believe we are all one, so we are one only, when we are together. We are alone but we are individuals and therefore just one as a whole.
My residency project would look at the notion of displacement and integration through investigation. I would be interested to collaborate with local students, artists and people to understand how they connect with their tradition, culture and religion. Exchanging knowledge and information are the important tool to learn the process and identify the strategy. Therefore, my focus would be learning from the Thai culture and their heritage. I will use a research-based approach to create a conceptual framework and explore the possibilities to apply in reference to Bengali-Muslim cultural identity.
Studio 88 Artist Residency 