Exhibition: Liminal Space

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Sat, Jul 15, 2023 - Sun, Oct 29, 2023  

Location

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Details

Liminal Space, a solo exhibition by Pakistani-American artist Anila Agha, explores the expansiveness of Agha’s multidisciplinary practice, bringing together immersive sculptures and intricate works on paper.

Agha creates large-scale sculptural works, wall mounted installations, and works on paper that are strikingly beautiful, while also reflecting on complex themes of global politics, social and gender roles, and mass media. Agha grew up in Lahore, Pakistan where women were prevented from participating in most art forms, with the exception of sewing. Inspired by her mother’s sewing, as a student in the US Agha began to incorporate sewing and the use of patterns into her practice, showing the way these art forms can be elevated beyond conventional ideas of craft and ‘women’s work.’ While studying fine art she was often told that as a woman of color and an immigrant, she would never advance as an artist if she incorporated craft or visual elements unique to Islamic culture into her work. Agha disregarded the advice and developed a singular practice that bridges the aesthetic of her childhood and personal history with a distinctly contemporary vision.

Inherent in all of Agha’s work is the desire for the work to be accessible to everyone - to create an environment where audiences from any community and any walk of life can experience Agha’s work. Agha’s work in public sculpture, at rural Museums all over the world, and at major global institutions, exemplifies her intention to create access around her work in order to contribute to the healing and transformation of our divided world. SLOMA is committed to advancing and supporting the work of contemporary artists, and to elevating their vision. In advance of Agha’s exhibition at the museum, a large-scale sculpture by Agha was installed in a public round-about in San Luis Obispo this past December, and received a public works award. The sculpture, The Greys in Between, is the first of 15 major public artworks to be installed in San Luis Obispo as a collaboration between the museum and the city.