Sophia Al Maria (Artist at Art Basel HK)

Research the artist, study the links below, go to the talk, make notes.

Based on your research about the artist’s work, write a 1500-word essay (3 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font). Please write a thesis statement and place it as the first sentence of your essay. The thesis statement asks a question or raises an issue arising from the artist’s work that you will address in your essay.

Make certain your transitions between paragraphs link what you have stated to what you write next.

Sophia Al Maria is an artist, writer and filmmaker. She studied comparative literature at the American University in Cairo, and aural and visual cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. 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.

For more on her work and biography, please visit http://www.thethirdline.com/artists/sophia-al-maria/biography/

**Important Works:
The Future Was Desert Part 1
Mirror Cookie (ART BASEL HK)