Parallax | Shahzia Sikander | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
Past exhibition

Shahzia Sikander, Parallax

07.16.2015 - 11.22.2015

The Film & Video room is a space permanently dedicated to video art and moving images.

Shahzia Sikander (1969, Lahore) takes traditional Indo-Persian drawing as her point of departure to form a critique of contemporary history. Shahzia’s work is pioneer in transferring the miniature technique to contemporary art and she is responsible for its resurgence in this domain.


The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents her work Parallax (2013); a multichannel installation composed of hundreds of digitally animated images. As her starting point, the artist focuses on the geostrategic position of the Strait of Hormuz. Concepts such as the ideas of conflict and control emerge as the core themes of a perspective stretching from modern history to the post-colonial period. The animation simultaneously combines abstract, figurative and textual elements, emphasizing the narrative complexity of the work. The soundtrack includes six poems recited in Arabic and written specifically for the video on subjects ranging from the regional historic context to reflections on human nature.

Shahzia Sikander
Parallax, 2013
Three-channel color animation with sound, 15 min and 30 sec Music by Du Yun
Music by Du Yun
© Shahzia Sikander. Courtesy of Sikander Studio

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