Lenticular Temporalities
A litany for past suns labeled rituals / A star lit any any all possible futures
From red dust to Black clay
Pretty Good Privacy Postcards
Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity
Freedom is a Durational Practice
Affirmations for my Existence
Google My Memories
Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe
In Poetic Coalition
Dictionary of Dark Matters
School for Poetic Computation
AncestryandMe
Erode
Hazelwood Memorial
Dog Cat Fish
all sculpture video installation virtual environment publication archive
last updated Dec 2024
My name is Zainab “Zai” Aliyu and I'm a nigerian-american artist, designer and cultural worker living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). My work explores the cybernetic and temporal entanglements within societal dynamics to understand how all sociotechnological systems of control are interconnected and how we are all materially implicated through time. I draw upon my body as a corporeal archive and site of ancestral memory to craft counter-narratives through sculptures, videos, installations, virtual environments, publications, archives, and social practice. more... more...
elsewhere

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currently

[Group Exhibition] The Spirit Has Eyes Toward Longing at Artspeak Gallery
Oct 2024 — Dec 2024 · Vancouver, Canada

[Residency] NEW INC at New Museum
Sep 2024 — Sep 2025 · New York, NY

[Work] Co-director at School for Poetic Computation
since Jan 2021 · New York, NY

[Work] Designer, developer and strategist at Independent studio practice
since Aug 2017 · New York, NY

formerly filter: all presenting practicing speaking teaching publishing documenting

[Residency] The Luminary
Oct 2024 · St. Louis, MO

[Group Exhibition] CODING at Vienna Design Week
Sep 2024 · Vienna, Austria

[Feature] Hot Picks 2024 by Smack Mellon
Sep 2024

[Group Exhibition] Sacred Screenshots at HEART
Aug 2024 — Sep 2024 · New York, NY

[Review] Notes from New York: Group Shows, Everywhere on ArtReview
Jul 2024

[Group Exhibition] Spiral Time at Smack Mellon
Jun 2024 — Aug 2024 · Brooklyn, NY

[Residency] ACRE
Jun 2024 — Jul 2024 · Steuben, WI

[Residency] Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
May 2024 — Jun 2024 · Deer Isle, ME

[Solo Exhibition] A litany for past suns labeled rituals / A star lit any and all possible futures: Part I (Anaglyphs) at Film at Lincoln Center
May 2024 · New York, NY

[Panel] Contemporary Artists on their Practices, Processes and Purpose at Pocoapoco
May 2024 · New York, NY

[Residency] Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA)
Apr 2024 · North Adams, MA

[Grant] Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) from WaveFarm
Apr 2024 · New York, NY

[Artist Talk] Virginia Commonwealth University
Feb 2024 · Richmond, Virginia

[Class] Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe at the School for Poetic Computation
Jan 2024 — Mar 2024 · Brooklyn, NY

[Panel] Genealogies of Sustenance: Opening Reception and Conversation at Gardiner Museum
Jan 2024 · Toronto, Canada

[Group Exhibition] Genealogies of Sustenance at Gardiner Museum
Jan 2024 — May 2024 · Toronto, Canada

[Fellowship] Post-Doctoral Project Fellow at ITP/IMA at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Jan 2024 — May 2024 · New York, NY

[Guest Critic] Parsons, The New School
Dec 2023 · New York, NY

[Artist Talk] “Echoes in the Archive: Decoding Colonial Legacies through Sonic and Textual Intervention” at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Dec 2023 · New York, NY

[Panel] Moderator* Software for Artists Day at Pioneer Works
Nov 2023 · Brooklyn, NY

[Publication] Software for Artists Book 3: In Poetic Coalition published by Pioneer Works & Artbook | D.A.P.
Nov 2023 · New York, NY · print

[Artist Talk] Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts
Oct 2023 · New Brunswick, NJ

[Workshop] Barro, moho, manifiesto: Un otro taller de creación del mundo / Mud, mold, manifest: An other world-building workshop at Pocoapoco
Oct 2023 · Oaxaca, Mexico

[Panel] American Artist, Zainab Aliyu, Taylor Levy and Che-Wei Wang Explore The Black Gooey Universe presented by The Kitchen
Sep 2023 · New York, NY

[Group Exhibition] Typojanchi: The International Typography Biennale at Culture Station Seoul
Sep 2023 — Oct 2023 · Seoul, Korea

[Fellowship] Digital/Electronic Arts Fellow at NYSCA/NYFA
Sep 2023 — Sep 2024 · New York, NY

[Residency] Pocoapoco
Sep 2023 — Oct 2023 · Oaxaca, Mexico

[Group Exhibition] Electronic Café for Poetic Computation at Recess
Jul 2023 — Aug 2023 · Brooklyn, NY

[Fellowship] Processing Foundation
Jun 2023 — Sep 2023 · New York, NY

[Residency] Session Artist Residency at Recess Arts
Jun 2023 — Aug 2023 · Brooklyn, NY

[Publication] From the Sasha into the Zamani: Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity published by Logic(s) Magazine
May 2023 · internet · print

[Solo Exhibition] From red dust to Black clay at Film at Lincoln Center
May 2023 · New York, NY

[Lecture-Performance] “A morte como momento de continuidade radical / Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity” at Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research
Apr 2023 · São Paulo, Brazil

[Residency] Conscientizações Críticas Tecnológicas (Technologies of Critical Conscientization) at Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research
Apr 2023 — May 2023 · São Paulo, Brazil

[Artist Talk] p5.js Community Salon at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Mar 2023 · New York, NY

[Residency] Aktuelle Architektur der KulturImages (AADK Spain)
Mar 2023 · Murcia, Spain

[Group Exhibition] Linguagem Manual / Manual Language at Buinho Institute
Feb 2023 · Messejana, Portugal

[Residency] Buinho Institute
Feb 2023 · Messejana, Portugal

[Screening] google my memories at Microscope Gallery
Nov 2022 · New York, NY

[Residency] Advisor* L.A.B. Residency at The Kitchen
Nov 2022 — Sep 2023 · New York, NY

[Feature] How a new guard of creatives is changing the way we engage with data on Friend of Friends
Oct 2022

[Feature] Reimagining Black Futures with Black Beyond on Cult Classic Mag
Sep 2022

[Solo Exhibition] freedom is a durational practice at Film at Lincoln Center
May 2022 · New York, NY

[Artist Talk] p5.js Access Day
May 2022 · internet

[Class] Dark Matters: On Blackness, Surveillance and the Whiteness of the Screen at the School for Poetic Computation
Mar 2022 — May 2022 · internet

[Group Exhibition] Assembly, Alchemy, Ascension at Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
Feb 2022 — Mar 2022 · New York, NY

[Artist Talk] WordHack at Babycastles
Feb 2022 · internet

[Fellowship] Future Imagination Collaboratory at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Jan 2022 — Jun 2023 · New York, NY

[Feature] Meet black beyond, the collective centring Black femmes in the world of digital art and design on It’s Nice That
Nov 2021

[Panel] AncestryandMe: DNA Processing Kit on Montez Press Radio
Nov 2021 · New York, NY

[Lecture-Performance] Digital Networks, Aesthetics and Black Death at Black Portraitures: Absent/ed Presence
Oct 2021 · Toronto, Canada

[Class] AncestryandMe: Critical Approaches to DNA Analysis and Biometric Surveillance at the School for Poetic Computation
Jul 2021 — Aug 2021 · internet

[Lecture-Performance] Interweaving Poetic Code at CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile)
Apr 2021 · Hong Kong, China

[Group Exhibition] Wheaton Biennial: final_final_FINAL at Beard and Weil Galleries
Mar 2021 — May 2021 · Norton, MA

[Panel] Dictionary of Dark Matters on Montez Press Radio
Jan 2021 · New York, NY

[Publication] “Limitlessness and Limitations: Defining Dark Matters” for Are.na Annual: On Tending published by Are.na
Dec 2020 · internet · print

[Guest Critic] Parsons, The New School
May 2020 · New York, NY

[Class] Dark Matters: On Blackness, Surveillance and the Whiteness of the Screen at the School for Poetic Computation
May 2020 — Jul 2020 · internet

[Workshop] Dark Spirals: Schematics for Collective Sense-Making, Learning and Dreaming (001: FESTAC'77) at The Africa Center
Feb 2020 · New York, NY

[Group Exhibition] Curator* Seven Years of Poetic Computation: Code and Power at Westbeth Gallery
Jan 2020 · New York, NY

[Publication] “Imaginary Numbers: On Unjust Equations and the Negation of Blackness” for Tiny Tech Zines presented at NAVEL
Aug 2019 · Los Angeles, CA · print

꩜ full cv available upon request







foregrounding an alternate imaginary of entangled time Lenticular Temporalities

interrogating the cultural value systems that are encoded into the objects that we build Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity

traversing borders to fabricate an infinite, pan-African chorus of shared somatic vibrations Freedom is a Durational Practice

challenging established relationships between reader, text, and authorship Affirmations for my Existence

exploring the ways in which machines can mediate the affects of displacement, human mobility and (re)settlement Google My Memories

unpacking the notion of creeping normality to reflect upon perennial social and environmental degradation Erode

analyzing notions of identity and presentation of self in physical realms and virtual contexts Dog Cat Fish