Biography

Shedding light on narratives from both ancient and contemporary mythologies of the Arabian Pen-insula, Moza Almatrooshi’s research investigates territorial knowledge and how it has been shaped across time, spanning agricultural practices, imperial impositions and postcolonial realities. Through a fictive lens, the artist creates collaborative works that critique the homogenisation of religious and national identities, developing a different outlook on her own local culture. Relying on food symbolism and magical realism, her research culminates in fictions and metaphors that connect regional food production and politics and highlights the ways in which they uphold nation-building techniques.

Her performance, titled Praise Hiya, was presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2019) and one of her moving image works Staff of Life was displayed in the ICA, London (2020).

Almatrooshi has participated in group exhibitions, including On Foraging, 421, Abu Dhabi (2022) Staple: What’s On Your Plate?, Hayy Jameel, Jeddah (2021); Lahore Biennale 02 (2020); Slade School of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition (2019); NOM, AMP Gallery, London (2018); Art Dubai (2016); and The Blue Hour, XX Bienal Internacional De Artes Visuales De Santa Cruz De La Sierra, Bolivia (2016).

She curated the Dubai as Guest City Programme exhibition in Beijing Design Week (2015) and was an artist-in-residence at Delfina Foundation (Politics of Food), London (2022), SOMA, Mexico City (2021), Townhouse Gallery, Cairo (2019) and A.i.R. Dubai (2015–2016).

Almatrooshi obtained a BFA in Arts and Creative Enterprises from Zayed University, Dubai (2013), an MFA from Slade School of Fine Art, London (2019) and a diploma in culinary arts from ICCA Dubai (2020). She is an alumna of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF), cohort of 2014–2015, in partnership with Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA.

She was recently a faculty fellow in the Sheikha Salama Emerging Artists Fellowship in Abu Dhabi, and currently works as a Sous Chef.

Born in Dubai, she currently lives and works in Sharjah.

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023)

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