Abi Tariq
Communications Director
Credit: Iris Anam Cara
ABI TARIQ is an artist and cultural worker born in Karachi and based in Paris. Tariq holds a Masters of Fine Art from Transart Institute (Berlin/NY), a Bachelor of Fine Art from Parsons Paris (now Paris College of Art), and a Pakistani passport.
Tariq's cross-media conceptual practice aims to critically expose or shift hierarchical structures through the lens of performance art. Tariq crafts context-specific installations, transmissions and exchanges inspired by the complex and complicated entanglements between language, culture and power. Through the ‘mystic-absurd’ performance methodology they question behavioral culture by confronting issues such as privilege, vulnerability and social expectation.
Still from 'Into ~ Balance' (2015/2020) Credit: Abi Tariq
In 2017, with the support of the Cité Internationale des Arts Tariq created ‘middle-man’ : a life-performance that facilitated the presence of works of French artists Virgile Fraisse, (La) Horde, and Jean Hubert at Pakistan’s first contemporary art biennale KB17.
In April 2020 Tariq began working for Council, a curatorial office founded in 2013 by Grégory Castéra and Sandra Terdjman, working on long-term international collaborative projects at the intersection of art and civic society. In 2022 the focus shifted to one particular project the AFIELD network of cultural changemakers. Through an international fellowship program and by providing resources and support, AFIELD assists practitioners who lead transformational change in their communities and in society as a whole.
New Gravity 2 (2021) Credit: .Studio Tariq-Ryan
Today Tariq splits time between working as a caretaker at the heart of AFIELD and out of the shared Studio Tariq-Ryan, an atelier at POUSH Aubervilliers-Pantin, with long-term collaborator, partner and fellow Transartist Honi Ryan. Ryan and Tariq met at Transart and have since collaborated on many projects such as the Silent Dinners.
Current art and/or research interest:
“The large paste-up, The unsaid, is that which you emit (2019) hints of the subtle ways in which we are always communicating with, and always connected to, one another. Tariq urges us to contemplate the overlooked involuntary telepathic abilities each human has the capacity to possess.”
“In the video work Into ~ Balance (2015/2020) the artist uses calm, balanced movements of the body to explore the relationship between their own outline and the changing colours of the video space. In the process, the form of the body transforms gradually into an ornamental abstraction overlapping both visually and acoustically with the quietly flowing sounds.”
The unsaid is that which you emit (2019) Credit: Silversalt
More information:
www.abitariq.com,