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archive
A litany for past suns
Lenticular Temporalities
Hovering
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
Dictionary of Dark Matters
Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe
In Poetic Coalition
School for Poetic Computation
AncestryandMe
Erode
Hazelwood Memorial
Dog Cat Fish
all sculpture video installation virtual environment publication archive
info
last updated Aug 2026
My name is Zainab “Zai” Aliyu and I'm a Nigerian-American artist, designer and cultural worker living in 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...
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[Group Exhibition] Portals Behind the Algorithm at Ifa Galerie
Apr 2026 — Aug 2026 · Stuggart, Germany

[Fellowship] Jerome Hill Artist Fellow at Jerome Foundation
Jan 2025 — Jan 2028 · 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

recently filter: all presenting practicing speaking teaching publishing documenting

[Fellowship] SIB Blacksmithing Fellowship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Jun 2026 — Jul 2026 · Deer Isle, ME

[Solo Exhibition] A litany for past suns at Baxter St at CCNY
Feb 2026 — Apr 2026 · New York, NY

[Group Exhibition] Ground Loops at Singapore Art Week
Jan 2026 · Singapore

[Fellowship] Benin Bronze-Making Fellowship at the Benin Kingdom Museum
Jan 2026 · Harlem, New York

[Group Exhibition] Close to the Clouds: Encountering Digital Diasporas at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Jan 2026 — May 2026 · Omaha, NE

[Panel] Guggenheim Museum and The Future Histories Studio presents Unsettling Intelligences: The Politics of Reason through Art and AI at Stony Brook University
Oct 2025 · Stony Brook, New York

[Group Exhibition] Protocols for Opacity at The Art Gallery at Brooklyn College
Oct 2025 — Jan 2026 · Brooklyn, NY

[Residency] Baxter St at CCNY
Jul 2025 — Dec 2025 · New York, NY

[Panel] shawné michaelain holloway, Zainab Aliyu and Caroline Honorien in conversation at AFTER HOURS
May 2025 · Paris, France

[Artist Talk] Canòdrom (Ateneu d'Innovació Digital i Democràtica)
May 2025 · Barcelona, Spain

[Grant] Local Arts Fund from Brooklyn Arts Council
May 2025 · Brooklyn, NY

[Residency] Dreaming Beyond AI at ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)
May 2025 · Barcelona, Spain

[Workshop] Teens Media Lab: Imagined Vessels at The Museum of Modern Art
May 2025 · New York, NY

[Group Exhibition] Working Knowledge at The Bronx Museum of the Arts
Apr 2025 — Aug 2025 · Bronx, NY

[Group Exhibition] Strange Time at SOIL Gallery
Apr 2025 · Seattle, WA

[Panel] American Artist, Martine Syms, and Zainab Aliyu in Conversation at Pioneer Works
Mar 2025 · Brooklyn, NY

[Publication] Shaper of God published by Pioneer Works & Artbook | D.A.P.
Mar 2025 · New York, NY · print

[Publication] Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe published by The Kitchen
Mar 2025 · New York, NY · print

[Workshop] Family Art Making: Imagined Vessels at The Museum of Modern Art
Jan 2025 · New York, NY

[Residency] Pioneer Works
Jan 2025 — Jun 2025 · Brooklyn, 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] Zina Saro-Wiwa, Zainab Aliyu and Maryam Kazeem in conversation 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

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

[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

[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

[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

꩜ full cv available upon request







A series of multimedia works that use the lenticular—a technology revealing multiple images from different angles—as a metaphor to expose concealed narratives, distortions, and illusions that uphold oppressive systems. The series foregrounds an alternate imaginary of entangled time, revealing how systems of control persist while positioning spaces of temporal transition as opportunities to challenge the binaries, fragmentation, and scarcity mindset of Western capitalist ideology.

Exhibited at SOIL Gallery (Apr 2025 · Seattle, WA) and Smack Mellon (Jun - Aug 2024 · Brooklyn, NY). Reviewed in ArtReview (Jul 2024). Published in The HTML Review (Mar 2024).

Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞, 2024. Installation (cowrie shells, brass, bronze, copper, wood, resin, ferrite rings, clay, lenticular print, risograph print, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions. Photo by Etienne Frossard. Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞ (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞, 2024. Installation (cowrie shells, brass, bronze, copper, wood, resin, ferrite rings, clay, lenticular print, risograph print, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions. Photo by Etienne Frossard. Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞ (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞, 2024. Installation (cowrie shells, brass, bronze, copper, wood, resin, ferrite rings, clay, lenticular print, risograph print, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions. Photo by Etienne Frossard. Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞ (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
A pair of Black hands—cast from my own bandaged hands—hold a memory object reminiscent of both the opele divination chain from my Yorùbá Nigerian heritage and early computer memory. This installation recognizes the overlooked contributions of Black women who served as human computers during NASA's Apollo missions, while honoring the ancestral memory of Indigenous African knowledge systems erased by colonialism. By invoking a "lenticular temporality," I celebrate my grandmothers and their connection to these practices, affirming our ongoing relationship with the past.
Lenticular Temporalities: 2949596 / ∞, 2024. Installation (cowrie shells, brass, bronze, copper, wood, resin, ferrite rings, clay, lenticular print, risograph print, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions.
Lenticular Temporalities (triptych), 2025. Sculpture (Aluminum, lenticular prints, LEDs). 18in x 27in x 2in each. Lenticular Temporalities (triptych) (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Lenticular Temporalities (triptych), 2025. Sculpture (Aluminum, lenticular prints, LEDs). 18in x 27in x 2in each. Lenticular Temporalities (triptych) (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
A series of lenticular light-boxes examining the shared logics of extractive expansion between Silicon Valley and Spanish Missions, the power consolidation of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, and the parallels between early computer memory and the opele divination chain, a form of ancestral memory in Yorùbá Nigerian cosmology. By layering these histories, the series reveals how systems of control persist across time.
Lenticular Temporalities (triptych), 2025. Sculpture (Aluminum, lenticular prints, LEDs). 18in x 27in x 2in each.
Lenticular Temporalities: Negotiating Obfuscation, 2024. Virtual Environment. Variable dimensions (responsive website). Lenticular Temporalities: Negotiating Obfuscation (Virtual Environment), Zainab Aliyu
A web experiment that that seeks to locate the power in physically engaging with hidden or layered realities. It examines how shifting perspectives can reveal hidden meanings and emphasizes the agency involved in uncovering what is initially concealed.
Lenticular Temporalities: Negotiating Obfuscation, 2024. Virtual Environment. Variable dimensions (responsive website).
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foregrounding an alternate imaginary of entangled time Lenticular Temporalities

An installation that situates technology within a diasporic imaginary to explore how machines mediate the conditions of displacement. The installation considers how technologies of navigation and surveillance shape our relationships to place. Across the works, hovering emerges as both a spatial and diasporic condition: suspended between lived memory and digital reproduction, earth and cloud, arrival and departure. Rather than locating diaspora between fixed points, “Hovering (or, suspended between arrival and departure)” approaches it as a recursive process of orientation and reorientation across physical and digital geographies.

Exhibited at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (jan - may 2026 · omaha, ne). microscope gallery (nov 2022 · new york, ny) and black beyond: origins (jun 2021 · internet). featured in cult classic mag (sep 2022) and it's nice that (nov 2021).

Hovering, 2026. Installation (two-channel video, vinyl). Dimensions variable. Hovering (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Google My Memories, 2022. Video (single-channel). 4:00min.
Google My Memories, 2022. Video (single-channel). 4:00min. Google My Memories (Video), Zainab Aliyu
An audiovisual meditation that considers the limits and possibilities of personal and collective memory through satellite imagery, screen recordings, and ambient aerial audio. The video surfaces the dissonance that arises when a search engine remembers more than the self. Through this kind of haptic visuality, the work maps an incoherent sense of place and time, rendered legible only through technological mediation, and reframes diasporic subjectivity as a recursive process of looking, mapping, and being mapped.
Google My Memories, 2022. Video (single-channel). 4:00min.
Root Memory, 2026. Installation (vinyl). Dimensions variable. Root Memory (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Root Memory, 2026. Installation (vinyl). Dimensions variable. Root Memory (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
A floor installation that evokes a helipad, referencing childhood helicopter rides I took to Bonny Island, Nigeria, the landscape depicted in “Google my memories” (2022). The work operates as both a viewing point and a symbolic terrain merging digital and physical geographies. In computing, “root memory” refers to the top-level directory of a file system. Borrowing this language, the work evokes buried infrastructures and latent histories. The helipad also points to the aerial logics of surveillance embedded in how we remember and observe, positioning hovering as a structuring logic of visibility.
Root Memory, 2026. Installation (vinyl). Dimensions variable.
Compass (true south), 2026. Video (single-channel). 4:00min.
An ambient second-channel video that functions as a shadow instrument to “Google my memories” (2022). The work renders a speculative directional gyro, or heading indicator, an aviation instrument used to orient an aircraft relative to magnetic north. As the satellite view in “Google my memories” pans and drifts across digital terrain, “Compass (true south)” echoes its movement through a slow-rotating dial. Its airplane icon occasionally gives way to a cursor, collapsing the navigational languages of aviation and digital interfaces. Heading south, the instrument reorients away from inherited directional systems and the territorial fixity of the ethno-state, affirming the Global South as both compass and home.
Compass (true south), 2026. Video (single-channel). 4:00min.
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exploring the ways in which machines can mediate the conditions of displacement Hovering

A counter-narrative installation exploring how cultural value systems are encoded in the objects we build and the mythologies they conjure. The installation resurfaces the overlooked contributions of women in early computing through gendered divisions of labor, while drawing functional and aesthetic connections between early computer memory and the opele divination chain, a form of ancestral memory from my Yorùbá Nigerian lineage. Programmed as an 8-bit counter, it challenges Western capitalist doctrines of linear temporality and future-facing “progress” by reviving an archive from my grandmother’s home, resisting the erasure of memory.

Published in Logic(s) Magazine (May 2023). Presented at Black Portraitures: Absent/ed Presence (Oct 2021 · toronto, canada) and the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (apr 2021 · hong kong, china). Featured in Ocula (Jul 2021) and Creative Applications (Jan 2020). Exhibited at the School for Poetic Computation (Dec 2019 · new york, ny).

Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity, 2020. Installation (cowrie shells, copper, brass, bronze, ferrite rings, magnet wire, arduino, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions. Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity, 2020. Installation (cowrie shells, copper, brass, bronze, ferrite rings, magnet wire, arduino, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions. Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity, 2020. Installation (cowrie shells, copper, brass, bronze, ferrite rings, magnet wire, arduino, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions. Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity (Installation), Zainab Aliyu
Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity, 2020. Installation (cowrie shells, copper, brass, bronze, ferrite rings, magnet wire, arduino, multi-channel video). Variable dimensions.
From the Sasha into the Zamani, 2020. Virtual Environment (two-channel generative video). Interactive.
The installation’s visual program references ontological aspects of non-linear time in East African tradition, where the past is viewed as an infinitely capacious realm that we are approaching, rather than moving away from. This contrasts with Western capitalist ideals that prioritize future-facing “progress” at the expense of erasing the past. Depending on the orientation of the eight shells facing up or down, a number between 0 and 255 is drawn, functioning as an 8-bit binary counter. A corresponding image from a forgotten archive of 256 photos from my grandmother, who has the closest link to this practice in my lineage, is triggered by the shells’ orientation.
From the Sasha into the Zamani, 2020. Virtual Environment (two-channel generative video). Interactive.
From the Sasha into the Zamani: Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity, 2023. Essay. From the Sasha into the Zamani: Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity (Essay), Zainab Aliyu
From the Sasha into the Zamani: Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity, 2023. Essay. From the Sasha into the Zamani: Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity (Essay), Zainab Aliyu
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interrogating the cultural value systems that are encoded into the objects that we build Death as a Moment of Radical Continuity

An experimental, durational moving image meditation foregrounding anthems of celebration across the diaspora, traversing borders to create an infinite pan-African chorus of shared somatic vibrations. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s concept of the chorus, the piece distorts colonial residues and remnants of empire in the ongoing struggle for collective liberation, evidenced in the historical effigies of national freedom songs across the diaspora, many still imbued with chauvinistic and patriarchal constructs. The text computationally weaves over 100 anthems, protests, hymns and freedom songs, while the sound draws from a personal, ethnomusicological archive of Afro-diasporic instruments.

Recipient of Wave Farm Media Arts Assistance Fund (Apr 2024) and Processing Foundation Fellowship Grant (Jul 2023). Exhibited at Film at Lincoln Center (May 2022 · New York, NY).

About Freedom is a Durational Practice, 2023. Artist Talk.
Freedom is a Durational Practice, 2022. Virtual Environment (single-channel generative website). Infinitely playing. Freedom is a Durational Practice (Virtual Environment), Zainab Aliyu
Freedom is a Durational Practice, 2022. Virtual Environment (single-channel generative website). Infinitely playing.
Freedom is a Durational Practice, 2022. Virtual Environment (single-channel generative website). Infinitely playing.
Freedom is a Durational Practice, 2022. Virtual Environment (single-channel generative website). Infinitely playing. Freedom is a Durational Practice (Virtual Environment), Zainab Aliyu
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traversing borders to fabricate an infinite, pan-African chorus of shared somatic vibrations Freedom is a Durational Practice

A non-linear audiovisual poem reimagined for the web, challenging traditional relationships between reader, text, and authorship while fully leveraging the internet’s potential for presenting text and sound. The poem explores themes of migration, lineage, and the mythology of the American Dream, offering my perspective as a Nigerian-born immigrant.

Featured in cult classic mag (sep 2022). Exhibited at Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery (feb 2022 — mar 2022 · new york, ny). Published in reading machines (jan 2021 · internet).

Affirmations for my Existence, 2021. Virtual Environment (single-channel interactive website with audio). Variable dimensions (responsive website).
Affirmations for my Existence, 2021. Virtual Environment (single-channel interactive website with audio). Variable dimensions (responsive website). Affirmations for my Existence (Virtual Environment), Zainab Aliyu
Affirmations for my Existence, 2021. Virtual Environment (single-channel interactive website with audio). Variable dimensions (responsive website). Affirmations for my Existence (Virtual Environment), Zainab Aliyu
Affirmations for my Existence, 2021. Virtual Environment (single-channel interactive website with audio). Variable dimensions (responsive website). Affirmations for my Existence (Virtual Environment), Zainab Aliyu
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challenging established relationships between reader, text, and authorship Affirmations for my Existence

A clothing collection and performance that explores the concept of “creeping normality,” reflecting on ongoing social and environmental degradation. Drawing parallels between the accelerated effects of the global climate crisis, the gradual erosion of civil liberties during interwar Germany, and the desensitization to continued police brutality in the United States, the collection serves as a metaphor, cautioning against the dangers of gradual change. Elements in the line transition from one extreme to another through minimal yet deliberate alterations, mirroring the evolving cultural, political, and environmental landscapes in constant flux.

presented at carnegie mellon university's annual experimental fashion show, lunar gala, in collaboration with kate werth and jonathan lopez (feb 2016). Written about in Carnegie Mellon News, TribLive and The Tartan (feb 2016).

Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture. Erode (Sculpture), Zainab Aliyu
Erode, 2016. Sculpture.
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unpacking the notion of creeping normality to reflect upon perennial social and environmental degradation Erode

A six-part anthology of one-act plays about [1] the contemporaneity of sociologist Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) that describes identity, construction of self, and human behavior as a series of performances shaped by time, place, and audience; [2] the relationship between the online disinhibition effect and notions of default whiteness, surveillance, and power structures on the Internet; [3] the role of design in replicating offline oppressive systems into online contexts; [4] and my experience growing up in virtual spaces.

Presented as my BFA thesis at carnegie mellon school of design (may 2017).

Dog Cat Fish, 2017. Publication. 8.5in x 11in. Dog Cat Fish (Publication), Zainab Aliyu
Dog Cat Fish, 2017. Publication. 8.5in x 11in. Dog Cat Fish (Publication), Zainab Aliyu
While Erving Goffman didn't live to see the prevalence of digital communication, much of his analyses of face-to-face interactions can be applied in virtual contexts through the lens of the online disinhibition effect, which describes the loosening of social restrictions when communicating on digital platforms. Each piece of the six-part series focuses on a digital social platform and portrays the implications of computer-aided affordances (e.g. default whiteness, surveillance, identity tourism, identity curation, catfishing, identity theft, cyber bullying, trolling) in order to build upon Goffman's original approach.
Dog Cat Fish, 2017. Publication. 8.5in x 11in.
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analyzing notions of identity and presentation of self in physical realms and virtual contexts Dog Cat Fish