Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti visual artist born in Senegal and educated in Japan. In 2010, she received a PhD in inter-media art from Tokyo University of the Arts, where her research was focused on the aesthetics of sadness in the Middle East, stemming from poetry, music, art and religious practices. Her work explores unconventional gender identities, petrocultures and their possible futures, as well as the legacies of corruption.
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Al Qadiri has had solo exhibitions at Amsterdam’s CIRCL Pavillon, Sursock Museum in Beirut and Gasworks in London, as well Stroom Den Haag and Tokyo Wonder Site. Her participation in international group exhibitions include shows at Forum Expanded at the Berlinale, the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, 6th Athens Biennial and Sweden’s Lulea Biennial, as well as Festival of Contemporary Art Sesc_Videobrasil in Sao Paulo, Venice’s Palazzo Franchetti San Marco and NYU Abu Dhabi. Al Qadiri was also a nominee for the Future Generation Art Prize in 2019.

Image by Raisa Hagiu