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...
[Fellowship]
Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship
Jan 2025 — Jan 2028 · New York, NY
[Residency]
Pioneer Works
Jan 2025 — Jun 2025 · Brooklyn, NY
[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
[Workshop]
Imagined Vessels at The Museum of Modern Art
Jan 2025 · New York, NY
[Artist Talk]
California Institute of the Arts
Dec 2024 · Valencia, CA
[Guest Critic]
Pratt Institute
Dec 2024 · Brooklyn, NY
[Workshop]
Ancestral Technologies: Myths, Maps and Memories of Afro-Diasporic Cosmologies at Artspeak Gallery
Nov 2024 · Vancouver, Canada
[Panel]
Annotation in Four Acts: Method, Madness presented by Guest Artists Space / Yinka Shoninbare Foundation
Nov 2024 · Lagos, Nigeria
[Group Exhibition]
The Spirit Has Eyes Toward Longing at Artspeak Gallery
Oct 2024 — Dec 2024 · Vancouver, Canada
[Residency]
The Luminary
Oct 2024 · St. Louis, MO
[Group Exhibition]
CODING at Vienna Design Week
Sep 2024 · Vienna, Austria
[Publication]
Speculative Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe published by School for Poetic Computation
Sep 2024 · New York, NY · print
[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
[Publication]
Lenticular Temporalities: Negotiating Obfuscation published by The HTML Review
Mar 2024 · internet
꩜ full cv available upon request
foregrounding an alternate imaginary of entangled time Lenticular Temporalities
forging connections across temporal, geographical and ancestral boundaries A litany for past suns labeled rituals / A star lit any any all possible futures
imagining generative possibilities for holding and being beholden to each other From red dust to Black clay
exploring privacy as intimacy through print ephemera, refigured colonial sculptures, and a web-based decryption tool Pretty Good Privacy Postcards
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
countering the opaque world of computing and the racial biases embedded within computational systems Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe
imagining what kinds of learning and unlearning we can practice together when we defy existing models for institution-building In Poetic Coalition
self-publishing an assemblage of knowledge on surveillance, racial capitalism and technology Dictionary of Dark Matters
supporting interdisciplinary study in art, code, hardware and critical theory School for Poetic Computation
learning about ancestral history within the context of biometric surveillance/DNA tracing technology AncestryandMe
leveraging spatial storytelling to examine the effects of systemic loss on the identity of a community Hazelwood Memorial
analyzing notions of identity and presentation of self in physical realms and virtual contexts Dog Cat Fish