Collective Behaviour:
Shahzia Sikander Artist Lecture
Collective Behaviour:
Shahzia Sikander Artist Lecture
Please join us to hear internationally renowned, New York-based artist Shahzia Sikander as she delivers a special illustrated lecture around her trailblazing cross-disciplinary art practice.
Featuring more than 150 images of artworks and events from across her celebrated career, Sikander will discuss how she has reframed South Asian visual histories through a contemporary feminist perspective for over three decades.
Shahzia Sikander’s command of diverse media and traditions, from historical South Asian miniature paintings to digital animation, reveals a vibrant visual universe that reimagines the past for our present moment. Through her multilayered creations, she considers diasporic experiences, histories of colonialism, and Western relations with the global South and the wider Islamic world, often through the lens of gender and body politics. Sikander is a recipient of the MacArthur ‘genius award’ and the Pollock Prize for Creativity, among others.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026), a brand-new hand-painted animation co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel and presented by UBS on the M+ Facade. The commission is on view from 23 March to 21 June 2026.
The lecture will be held in English.
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
About the Artist
Shahzia Sikander (American, born Pakistan, 1969)is widely celebrated for her pioneering work in subverting Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions, bringing them into dialogue with contemporary international art practices and launching the form known today as ‘neo-miniature’. Engaging ideas of language, trade, empire, and migration through fluid and surreal permutations, Sikander’s work resonates with a postmodern world and a contemporary feminist perspective. Her iconoclastic multimedia practice expands painting, video animation, mosaic, and sculpture to explore gender, sexuality, racial narratives, and colonial histories. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Award and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s Pollock Prize for Creativity, among others.
Photo courtesy of Agostino Osio
Related Work
Image at top: Shahzia Sikander. 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (still), 2026. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of the artist