Runa Islam

Biography

In Runa Islam's recent practice, she uses a pared-back filmic language to delve into questions of perception and the role of lens-based technologies in mediating how we see and understand the world. Her visual syntax is often so restricted that the image is all but denied; what comes to the fore is the act of looking itself. In Magical Consciousness, 2010, the back of a Japanese folding screen serves as an allegory for the “silver screen”.

This Much Is Uncertain, 2009–10, relates the grain of film stock to the glittering volcanic sand found on the Italian island of Stromboli.

Islam has held solo exhibitions at venues including Arter, Istanbul(2012); MoMA, New York (2011); SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA (2011); Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2010); MUMOK, Vienna, Austria (2008); Serpentine Gallery, London(2006) and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2005).

Islam was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008.

This person was part of Sharjah Biennial 11