Sophia Al-Maria is an artist, writer and filmmaker. For the past few years, she has been carrying out research around the concept of Gulf Futurism. Her primary interests are around the isolation of individuals via technology and reactionary Islam, the corrosive elements of consumerism and industry, and the erasure of history and the blinding approach of a future no one is ready for. She explores these ideas with certain guidebooks and ideas including, but not limited to, Zizek’s The Desert of the Unreal, As-Sufi’s Islamic Book of the Dead, as well as imagery from Islamic eschatology, post humanism and the global mythos of Science Fiction.
Her work has been exhibited in various institutional shows around the world, including Tate Britain (London, UK, 2019); Fondazione Pomodoro (Milan, Italy, 2019); Whitechapel Gallery (London, UK, 2019); Mercer Union, Images Festival (Toronto, Canada, 2018); Kunsthall Stavanger (Stavanger, Norway, 2017); Biennale of Moving Images (Miami, US, 2017); High Line Art (New York, USA, 2017); Villa Empain Boghossian Foundation (Brussels, Belgium, 2017); Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing, China, 2017); La Casa Encendida (Madrid, Spain, 2017); Benaki Museum (Athens, Greece, 2017).
Her writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Five Dials, Triple Canopy, and Bidoun. In 2007, she published her first autobiographical novel, The Girl Who Fell to Earth (Harper Collins Perennial).
Al-Maria currently lives and works in London, UK.
