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![Money]( "Money")
infoPart of the Portrait Series 2016 - Ongoing
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![Ayay-ul-Kursi]( "Ayay-ul-Kursi")
infoPart of the Portrait Series 2016 - Ongoing
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![Dadi's Key]( "Dadi's Key")
infoPart of the Portrait Series 2016 - Ongoing
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![The Empty Bench (installation shot)]( "The Empty Bench (installation shot)")
infoFilmhuis Den Haag 2020
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The Empty Bench (Trailer) Produced: Netherlands, Pakistan, England Language: English / Urdu Single Channel Video Length: 14.32 min Year: 2019
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Produced: The Netherlands Single Channel Video Length: 6.59 min
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![Fast Love and the Palm Tree Beach Hut]( "Fast Love and the Palm Tree Beach Hut")
infoDesign & Binding by: Zuzanna Loch Print: RISO in Flat Gold Limited edition of 10
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![A Place, No Longer (video still)]( "A Place, No Longer (video still)")
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![The Empty Bench (Installation Shot)]( "The Empty Bench (Installation Shot)")
infoInstallation: Garden images printed on vinyl sticker, cardboard, mdf, archive garden image printed on vinly wallpaper for backdrop. The Empty Bench, Museum Hilversum 2019
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![The Empty Bench (installation shot))]( "The Empty Bench (installation shot))")
infoKABK Graduation Festival 2019
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![Flight's I Could Have Taken]( "Flight's I Could Have Taken")
infoInstallation Shot; Good Work, The Grey Space in the Middle, The Hague
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![Screen Shot 2017-12-18 at 14.58]( "Screen Shot 2017-12-18 at 14.58")
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![Stone]( "Stone")
infoPart of the Portrait Series 2016 - Ongoing
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![Clay]( "Clay")
infoPart of the Portrait Series 2016 - Ongoing
Nael Quraishi is an artist based in Rotterdam, NL. Having grown up in both Pakistan and the UK, the roots of his practice lay deeply within childhood recollections and memories of space and specificity of place. Working with mixed mediums, Quraishi casts a subtle yet sharp light on the individual and collective experience of nostalgia, displacement and (be)longing, highlighting its lasting affect on everyday life.
Websites
Personal
www.naelquraishi.com/Online platform for 'The Empty Bench'
theemptybench.onfotomat.com/Social media
Curriculum vitae
Education
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2016 - 2019Photography Den Haag, Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten diploma
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2014 - 2016Photography Ulster University Belfast School of Art
exhibitions
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2020ROOTS Film Festival Filmhuis Den Haag The Hague, Netherlands Screening of The Empty Bench during ROOTS Film Festival 2020. The short film is up for Het Witte Doek Award given by Societeit de Witte www.filmhuisdenhaag.nl/agenda/event/roots-programma-studio-a?fbclid=IwAR358rb4sVzobGEQOawgtkF1-zJubvYIMRd70Cqbj4XqGNLd1khK1wqROls
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2020Generation Z: on the verge of a new alphabet Museum Belvédère Heerenveen, Netherlands Noorderlicht International Photo Festival 2020 GENERATION Z, the 27th edition of the Noorderlicht International Photo Festival Curated by: Rober jan Verhagen The exhibited work: The Empty Bench (2019) www.noorderlicht.com/ Group
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2020De Zilveren Camera Museum Hilversum Hilversum, Netherlands The Silver Camera is the Dutch prize for photojournalism and documentary photography and has been awarded since 1949. The exhibited work: The Empty Bench (2019) www.zilverencamera.nl/jaargang/2019-2/2e-prijs-st-2019/ Group
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2020The Empty Bench An online platform dedicated to showcase a short film 'The Empty Bench' by Nael Quraishi. Hosted by Fotomat theemptybench.onfotomat.com/ Solo
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2019KABK Graduation Festival The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague The Hague, Netherlands The exhibited work: The Empty Bench (2019) www.kabk.nl/agenda/graduation-festival-2019 Group
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2019Push It To The Limit Melkweg Expo Amsterdam, Netherlands A preview of Graduation works by KABK Photography class of 2019. The exhibited work: The Empty Bench (2019) www.melkweg.nl/en/agenda/push-it-to-the-limit-24-05-2019 Group
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2019The Quantum City: Territory Space Place Karachi Port Trust Karachi, Pakistan Part of the 1st edition of the International Pakistan Art Festival 2019 Curated by: Zarmeene Shah, Amin Gulgee and Sara Pagganwala Supported by I AM Karachi, Martin Dow group and KPT. The exhibited work: A Place, No Longer (2019) www.artnowpakistan.com/the-quantum-city/ Group
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2019(Un)Conditional Bibliotheek Den Haag The Hague, Netherlands A study on the emotional attachment people have towards their national anthem. The exhibited work: (Un)Conditional (2019) Solo
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2018Beyond View Belfast Exposed Gallery Belfast, United Kingdom Beyond View brings together twenty-five photographers, marking the ten-year anniversary of the Photography Department at Ulster University’s Belfast School of Art. The exhibited work: An Exercise in Faith (2015) www.belfastexposed.org/exhibitions/beyond-view/ Group
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2018Good Work The Grey Space in The Middle The Hague, Netherlands Exhibition of 'Noun Presents' an art-collective of KABK Photography students. Curated by Femke Lutgerink The exhibited work: Flights I Could Have Taken (2018) Group
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2018Let Me Tell You About UNSEEN Photo Fair Amsterdam, Netherlands 12 third-year Photography students have curated an exhibition led by teachers such as Ola Lanko, Raimond Wouda, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. At Unseen, the third-year students told about their world through photography. While each photographic story stood on its own, they shared a desire to tackle difficult themes that preoccupy them as young creators. Participating photographers: Nael Quraishi, Elodie Vreeburg, Viktor Naumovski, Katarina Juričić, Sophie Schwartz, Caspar von Eugen, Filippo Maria Ciriani, Daniela Roșca, Tibor Dieters, Avgud, Stella Loning and Linnea Frandsen. The exhibited work: Who's Been Eating My Porridge? (2016) www.instagram.com/let.me.tell.you.about/ Group
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2018NOUN Presents The Academy of Fine Arts and Design VŠVU / AFAD Bratislava, Slovakia An exhibition displaying the results of a week long fieldtrip to Bratislava, Slovakia with the NOUN Presents collective The exhibited work: Forged (2018) Group
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2017EYE on Trance and Moving Image: Researchlabs EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands Trying to excel, experiencing a journey, getting lost, watching a movie with our eyes closed, witnessing a dance listening to sound, meditating, trying to become no one. With a touch on a wide range of practices as photography, fine arts, graphic and interactive media design the programme of the students of the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) will focus on trying to visualise their personal experiences of trance and how they can convey those to the viewer. Film will be combined with painting, animation and music but also dance performance, light and sound design in order to confront the variety of sensible spaces that the state of trance deals with. www.eyefilm.nl/film/trance-and-moving-image-researchlab-kabk Group
Projects
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2019
The Empty Bench theemptybench.onfotomat.com/ “Dear all, I cannot even begin to explain how it felt to hear the news, It was important to me that both sides of my family would come together again… Does everyone remember what the grass in our old garden looked like?” Comprising a 14 minute film featuring a collaborative photographic series and installation ‘The Empty Bench’ is set around the event of an unpredictable family reunion which would take place in Karachi, Pakistan after ten years of not being together collectively. Set against the domestic backdrop of family gardens and drying laundry, three months of phone calls and alternate means of photographic communication, the complexities of daily life are slowly revealed through various perspectives and intimate atmospheres of a migrant’s persistent struggle of being part of a familial bond, which is disjointed and spread around the globe. Though the physical distance and long-term absence have direct consequences on their personal lives and relationships, they simultaneously manage to stay intertwined. Produced: Netherlands, Pakistan, England Language: English / Urdu Single Channel Video Length: 14.32 min Year: 2019
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2019
A Place, No Longer The Hague, Netherlands How do we stay connected to places that no longer exist? This is about Basant, a dhol player from The Netherlands who’s journey began in Ludhiana, India in 2008. While visiting 8 years after in 2016, he returned to the location where he learnt how to play in hope of reliving his memories. He find out that the building had been demolished amongst others on the street due to the cities anti-encroachment operation carried out by the Municipal Corporation authorities. Produced: The Netherlands Single Channel Video Length: 6.59 min
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2018
Flight's I Could Have Take The Hague, Netherlands A dream turned sour. Process became a struggle. An idea was pushed too far So... I guess it’s time to confess, I have an obsession with the idea of going back ‘home’ which to me I think is Karachi, Pakistan. The longer I don’t go the bigger the problem gets.
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2016
Portrait Series 2016 - Ongoing Objects of my childhood as pieces of one greater puzzle matched with archive portraits of myself.
International exchanges/Residencies
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2018Berlin, Germany Internship with artist and filmmaker Bani Abidi "Abidi often uses video as her tool for mnemonic recall while embedding the medium with a poetic function and layers of fiction. Currently based in Berlin and Karachi, she assumes the role of a storyteller and urban archaeologist in telling the stories of cities she has lived in. Fictional narratives traverse individual experiences and ask complex questions on patriotism, framed by the historic power struggles and geopolitical relations between neighbouring nation-states India and Pakistan. Her works spin tales of ambition and failure, while thematising the relationship between state power, patriotism and megalomania." Abidi’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at; Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); Gropius Bau (2019); Kunsthaus Hamburg (2016); Gandhara Art Space, Karachi (2016); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015); 8th Berlin Biennale (2014); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013); dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany (2012) baniabidi.com/#/
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2017Bratislava , Slovakia A week long field-trip as part of the NOUN Presents collective in collaboration with The Academy of Fine Arts and Design VŠVU / AFAD Bratislava.
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2015Fondazione Studio Marangoni Florence, Italy A week long exchange/workshop with the students at Fondazione Studio Marangoni producing a new work alongside discussions and concept developments for ongoing work. www.studiomarangoni.it/
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2012Karachi, Pakistan Internship with artist Shalalae Jamil. "Jamil was born and raised in Pakistan and educated at Bennington College, USA and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA. She has exhibited work in Pakistan and India, the US and the UK. She has been on the faculty of Beaconhouse National University, Lahore; National College of Arts, Lahore; and the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, where she was head of the Postgraduate Diploma Course In Photography. Her work is in several private collections, including the Arts Council in Pakistan and the Devi Art Foundation in India. Using photography, film, video, installation and elements of performance, she continually investigates how perception and meaning are altered by the shifting parameters of private and public space. Sometimes poetic, but often straightforward, her work uses the generic to address unspoken aspects of shared experience." www.kbcuratorial.com/artists/shalalae-jamil
Commissions
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202015 Minutes with Nael Quraishi Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam Rotterdam , Netherlands A series of portraits made on 30th August 2020 for affiliated clients of Nederlands Fotomuseum used for their own private collections. www.instagram.com/p/CEHr4eZjFAd/ finished
Sales/Works in collections
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2019Fast Love and the Palm Tree Beach Hut Nederlands Fotomuseum Library Rotterdam, Nederland Thesis 'Fast Love and the Palm Tree Beach Hut' 5 non-linear stories about 5 different objects that reveals traces of displacement, nostalgia, migration, family history and (be)longing. The reoccurring question throughout this thesis is; why do we project our memories/personalities onto objects and give meaning to the meaningless? and how can they act as a mirror of our own personal histories? The goal is to further understand the reasons behind this peculiar habit. A research into my own memory, theories behind the human relation to the artifact world, popular culture, and then further diving into the causes, such as nostalgia and cultural identity.
Publications
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2020Universal need for connection Book PF Professionele Fotografie Claire Hoogakker Netherlands "The recently graduated, young British-Pakistani artist Nael Quraishi won the second prize for Storytelling of the Silver Camera last February. His winning project The Empty Bench is a multimedia project centered around a family reunion that was originally to take place in Karachi, Pakistan. When he started this project, he expressed the self-fulfilling prophecy that his project might be stronger if this reunion never took place. Nevertheless, the project came about, in ways and with effects, for both his family ties and his artistic practice, which he could never have predicted."
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2020Between Light, Works 1984-2020 Monograph Ayessha Quraishi Karachi, Pakistan www.ayessha.com/ A set of commissioned portraits featured in the artists first monograph, at the occasion of their mid-career retrospective.
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2019The Quantum City: Territory Space Place Catalog IPAF Curitorial Karachi, Pakistan A catalogue published for the exhibition The Quantum City: Territory Space Place as part of the International Pakistan Art Festival 2019
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2019Fast Love and the Palm Tree Beach Hut Book Nael Quraishi The Hague, Netherlands 5 non-linear stories about 5 different objects that reveals traces of displacement, nostalgia, migration, family history and (be)longing. The reoccurring question throughout this thesis is; why do we project our memories/personalities onto objects and give meaning to the meaningless? and how can they act as a mirror of our own personal histories? The goal is to further understand the reasons behind this peculiar habit. I carried out various research methods to reach a result, with a research into my own memory, theories behind the human relation to the artifact world, popular culture, and then further diving into the causes, such as nostalgia and cultural identity. Design & Binding by: Zuzanna Loch Print: RISO in Flat Gold Limited edition of 10
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2018Flights I Could Have Taken Book Nael Quraishi The Hague, Netherlands Pre-production dummy printed on the occasion of Good Work exhibition.
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2017NOUN Presents: Appendix Book NOUN Presents The Hague, Netherlands
reviews
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2020PF Professionele Fotografie "Universal need for connection" Magazine Claire Hoogakker Netherlands "The recently graduated, young British-Pakistani artist Nael Quraishi won the second prize for Storytelling of the Silver Camera last February. His winning project The Empty Bench is a multimedia project centered around a family reunion that was originally to take place in Karachi, Pakistan. When he started this project, he expressed the self-fulfilling prophecy that his project might be stronger if this reunion never took place. Nevertheless, the project came about, in ways and with effects, for both his family ties and his artistic practice, which he could never have predicted."
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2020Villa La Repubblica; Graduation Festival 2019; Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (KABK), Den Haag Website Bertus Pieters Netherlands villalarepubblica.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/het-zij-ze-gegund-graduation-festival-2019-koninklijke-academie-van-beeldende-kunsten-kabk-den-haag/?fbclid=IwAR2yDVYqBa-dVM5DBJaSILFS8HKBsFaXzTEf8i1D7mLijNRSrH5zK0Hc7iQ Review of the KABK Graduation festival 2019 featuring 'The Empty Bench'
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2015FotoFirst — Nael Quraishi Confronts Islam with ‘An Exercise in Faith’ Website Graziano Ferri fotoroom.co/an-exercise-in-faith-nael-quraishi/
Awards and grants
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2019Prize for Storytelling De Zilveren Camera Netherlands The Storytelling Prize annually rewards projects that tell socially relevant stories and enter into experiments in both imagination and form. Photography forms the basis of the projects eligible for this prize, and preferably multidisciplinary cross-fertilization is used. "Second place is for the work of a young maker with a razor sharp narrative, manages to evoke an intimate atmosphere and at the same time create a great story…this smaller, more personal approach, not naming or photographing the underlying socio-political issues, which are almost carelessly touched upon in the work itself, is a relief and leads to a poignant, but precise narrative" - Jury's Report