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Abdullah Qureshi

Lecturer

Department: Arts

Abdullah Qureshi (b. 1987, Lahore) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator. Rooted in traditions of abstraction, he incorporates gestural, poetic, and hybrid methodologies to address autobiography, trauma, and sexuality through painting, filmmaking, and immersive events.

Qureshi's work has been exhibited internationally, including at the National Gallery of Art, Islamabad, Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore, Rossi & Rossi, London, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia, and SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco. He has held numerous positions at cultural and educational institutions, including the British Council Pakistan, National College of Arts, Lahore, and OCAD University, Toronto. Qureshi has conducted lectures, paper readings, and artist talks around the world, including at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU), Prague, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, PRAKSIS, Oslo, Residency Unlimited, New York, University of California, Irvine, Valand Academy, Gothenburg, and Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Havana.

In 2017, Qureshi received the Art and International Cooperation fellowship at Zurich University of the Arts, and in 2018, a research fellowship at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, Boston. In 2019, he joined the Centre for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto as a visiting graduate student. Qureshi is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Aalto University, Espoo, and Lecturer in Fine Art at Northumbria University, Newcastle.

Abdullah Qureshi

Drawing from childhood memories, everyday surroundings, and intimate encounters, interior objects, abstract landscapes, and faceless portraits are recurring themes in his two-dimensional work. In moving image and durational projects, Qureshi situates artistic concerns from the personal into more expansive conversations on critical histories, visual culture, and social justice. His films take a camp performance-based approach to portray scenes, symbols, and non-linear narratives that extend his visual language, questions on identity, and queer genealogies outside the Western canon.

Working with long-term collaborators, Qureshi’s curating, cultural programming, pedagogy, and writings further articulate his inquiries in feminist, LGBTIQ2S+, decolonial, anti-racist, and migratory discourses. Centering Black and People of Color perspectives, he engages collective modes of creative thinking, organization, and production. Through his ongoing doctoral project, Mythological Migrations: Imagining Queer Muslim Utopias, he examines formations of queer identity and resistance in Muslim migratory contexts.

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Lockdown Lovers, Qureshi, A., Qureshi, F. 10 May 2022
  • OPEN ENCOUNTERS, Qureshi, A. 10 Mar 2022
  • Critical Artistic Research and Arts Practices as Forms of (Radical) Care, Godin, M., Kallio-Tavin, M., Qureshi, A. Dec 2021, In: Research in Arts and Education
  • Touching/Transforming: Notes Towards Collective Critical Artistic Research Practices and Processes, Bäckman, F., Close, R., Godin, M., Kallio-Tavin, M., Mehta, A., Qureshi, A., Sadatizarrini, S. 31 Dec 2021, In: Research in Arts and Education
  • On Digital Decolonization: A Conversation with Morehshin Allahyari, Qureshi, A. 2020
  • The Bag of Passports: on Mobility, National Identity, and Migration, Qureshi, A. Dec 2019, In: Research in Arts and Education
  • Darkrooms: retracing childhood memories, Qureshi, A. 21 Jun 2018
  • Queer Migrations: A Case of an LGBT Café / Queers Without Borders, Qureshi, A. 2018, Feminism and Queer in Art Education, Finland, Aalto University

Fine Art MA September 01 2010


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