Asian Artists to Watch 2024: Anida Yoeu Ali

Each year, we identify the Asian artists on the rise, shining a light on the exciting and provocative works enriching the region’s artistic and cultural landscape. The US-based Cambodian artist Anida Yoeu Ali shares her story.

Now based in Tacoma in the US, Anida Yoeu Ali was born in Cambodia and fled the country with her family during the Khmer Rouge regime. She grew up in Illinois, where she received a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ali co-founded Studio Revolt, an independent artist-run collaborative media lab and was named senior artist-in-residence at the University of Washington Bothell. Her work has been supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts and the Art Matters Foundation.

Ali explores hybrid identities, spiritual expression and social justice through performance, public encounters and political agitation. She uses colourful, sculptural garments to transform herself and her collaborators into mythical heroines that challenge perceptions and fears of the “other”. 

Her Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence exhibition, currently on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, features two of her acclaimed series, The Buddhist Bug and The Red Chador, which reflect her fusion of multiple religious aesthetics and offer new possibilities of spiritual expression. The former, a colossal saffron-coloured creature spanning 100 metres, symbolises displacement and belonging and reflects her complex emotional relationship with Cambodia. The Red Chador is based on the growing global concerns regarding Islamophobia, misogyny and racism, and is a series of silent public performances designed to confront and challenge perceptions associated with the “other”. This artwork symbolises the heightened visibility of Muslim women and serves as a catalyst for sparking critical conversations about identity, reflecting her Cham-Muslim refugee migration experience. 

Ali’s exhibition also includes sculpture, video, photography, and installation art, documenting the performances of these works in various locations worldwide.

See our Art Basel Hong Kong coverage here.

(Header image: Anida Yoeu Ali, Abbey Road, The Red Chador: Genesis I (2021))