Sophia Al-Maria is a Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker living and working in London. She grew up between the United States and Qatar before moving to Egypt to study comparative literature at the American University in Cairo. She next completed a graduate degree in aural and visual cultures at Goldsmiths, London. The seemingly disparate sources of inspiration for Al Maria’s multidisciplinary practice include pop culture, anime, Arabic poetry, sci-fi, and her personal experience of pollution and climate change. Working primarily with film and narrative text, the artist weaves captivating tales as a way to process her thoughts and feelings about the future. Her recent work focuses increasingly on the isolation of individuals via technology, consumerism as proxy religion, and how agency and chance play in the blinding approach of an uncertain future. In Sad Sack, a recently published collection of writings, Al Maria explores the possibility that, in some respects, the Gulf is already living within the future imagined by those in the West.  

Last update: Nov 2nd, 2021