Shahzia Sikander is a citizen of the world. Over the course of three decades, Sikander has developed a multi-media practice that embraces the production of compelling objects that practically and theoretically transcend borders. Her meaningful artistic and social collaborations probe contested histories of colonialism, mechanisms of power, notions of language and migration. Sikander is internationally renowned for a pioneering practice that takes classical Indo-Persian miniature painting as its point of departure, and inflects it with contemporary South Asian, American, Feminist and Muslim perspectives. Sikander’s work stands in opposition to the idea of homogenous and authentic national cultures; instead, Sikander asks that we understand terms such as “tradition,” “culture” and “identity” as unstable, abstract and constantly evolving. Her interdisciplinary practice offers a different and more inclusive way that delimits the arbitrariness of geopolitical borders and radically disrupts assumptions around national, political, and art historical boundaries.Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahzia Sikander took up the traditional practice of miniature painting during Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime, at a time when the medium was deeply unpopular among young artists. Sikander earned a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, where she received rigorous training from master miniaturist Bashir Ahmad, becoming his first student and artist from the miniature painting department to challenge the medium’s technical and aesthetic framework. Sikander’s breakthrough work, The Scroll, 1989–90, received national critical acclaim in Pakistan, winning the prestigious Shakir Ali Award, the NCA’s highest merit award, and the Haji Sharif award for excellence in miniature painting. Sikander started teaching miniature painting at NCA in 1992, alongside Bashir Ahmad. Her work launched what is now globally called neo-miniature into the forefront of NCA’s program in the early 90s, encouraging students on the sidelines weary about prejudices around craft-based work to engage miniature painting with experimentation. In the late 90s to early 2000s Sikander's work in the international arena brought recognition to this medium within contemporary art practices across the world.
