The fourth edition of the Colombo Art Biennale (CAB) 2016 themed ‘Conceiving Space’ will be held from December 2 - 10, 2016. CAB is the largest and most significant contemporary art festival in Sri Lanka. Established in 2009, CAB showcases contemporary art with an emphasis on Sri Lanka and the South Asian region. This year the Biennale will showcase 64 local and international artists, (including 20 emerging and 3 established local artists), 11 international architects, 5 international university student groups and 17 performance artists from Theertha Performance Platform, Sri Lanka. CAB will feature a variety of artistic expressions, including: visual multimedia installations, performance art, and architects working as artists. 

Let’s meet some of the international artists taking part in this year’s biennale. 

Faiza Butt (UK/Pakistan) 

Faiza Butt was born in Lahore, Pakistan. She received her BA from the National College of Arts in 1993, with Honours, and was awarded the Berger Gold Medal for outstanding student of the year. She holds a master’s degree in painting with a distinction award from the Slade School of Fine Art, and a teaching certificate from the Institute of Education. 

In 1995, Butt was awarded a UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary, and was artist in residence for three months at the Bartle Arts Trust (BAT) in Durban, South Africa. During this time, she held workshops for women from shantytowns, presented talks at museums and galleries and produced a solo show at the BAT Centre. 

Butt’s elaborate drawings are obsessively crafted with passion and rigour, and create surfaces that hover between photography and embroidery. Born into a family of five sisters, gender related themes are close to her heart. Her work has been exhibited at various art fairs, such as Art Dubai and the Hong Kong Art Fair, and extensively in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and the United States. Her work can also be found in private and public collections, including the British Museum, around the world. Her Mid-career retrospect ‘Paracosm’ opened at the New Art Exchange in April 2015, It travelled to the Art Exchange at the University of Essex in November 2015 and opened at the Attenborough Centre of Arts ( University of Leeds), in Sep 2016. 

Mithu Sen (India) 

Mithu Sen lives and works in New Delhi, India. She completed her BFA (1995) and MFA (1997) from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, Visva Bharati, India; and PG Programme from the Glasgow School of Art 2000-2001, UK. Sen‘s practice stems from a conceptual and interactive background woven into drawing, poetry, moving images, installations, sculptures, sound and performances. With LIFE being the medium of her practice, she pushes the limits of acceptable language, questioning our pre-codified hierarchical etiquettes in society within the politics of tabooed (cultural and gendered) identity/psychosexuality, radical hospitality and lingual anarchy. 

She has exhibited widely at museums, institutions, including, Kenpoku Art, Northern Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan (2016); PEM (Peebody Essex Museum) USA, (2016); Art Unlimited, Basel (2016); Albertina Museum, Vienna (2015); Queens Museum, New York, (2015) and in many other previous occasions. 

Tasawar Bashir (UK/Pakistan) 

During the 1990s Tasawar worked for Cinephilia, The Drum, BBC Radio One, and Channel Four. He became Head of Cinema at mac in Birmingham in 1998, where he developed international Film Festivals with the BFI. In 2002 he became Head of Cultural Projects for the Birmingham European Capital of Culture bid team where he produced international projects for the CBSO, Fierce Earth Festival and RIBA. In 2005 he began series of on-going Sufi-inspired collaborations with AR Rahman. 

Since 2006 he has worked in tough social contexts with young people to make short films, scripts, music videos, and photography projects that examine crime, gang-related violence, inner-city identity and affiliation. In his own work Tasawar explores notions of the sacred using modern technology, public data sets, software algorithms, and art-based experiments to design contemporary mosques. His gallery-based works comment on our collective responses towards the idea and the reality of God - in 2012 his work was exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Most recently he has commenced his PhD research at the University of Birmingham around 21st century Sufi sound art. At the CoED Foundation Tasawar leads on research and administration he works closely with the CEO to develop the Foundations projects. 

Hardeep Pandhal (UK) 

Born in Birmingham, Hardeep Pandhal now lives and works in Glasgow, having graduated with an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art in 2013 with the support of a Leverhulme Scholarship award. He was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2013), the Glasgow International Open Bursary (2013), the Catlin Art Guide (2014) and the Drawing Room Bursary Award (2015). 

Recent solo exhibitions include a solo show at Castlefield Gallery as part of the Asian Triennial Manchester 2014 and a public art commission on the site of the former Camp Coffee factory for the Glasgow International Festival 2014. He was selected for Collective’s 2015 Satellites Programme for emergent artists based in Scotland. 

In recent works, Hardeep Pandhal has incorporated non-linear modes of storytelling, parodic language and his own biographical content; in home movies, recurring cartoon alter-egos and handmade garments made by his my mother, with whom he shares a Punjabi/English language barrier. He would like to question whether art can confront or sublimate trauma to convey otherwise unpresentable ideas, address situations of compromise and articulate so-called marginalised positions. 

Reena Kallat (India) 

Reena Saini Kallat's (Delhi, India) practice spanning drawing, photography, sculpture and video engages diverse materials, imbued with conceptual underpinnings. Her work has widely been exhibited across the world in venues such as the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Kennedy Centre, Washington; Vancouver Art Gallery; Saatchi Gallery, London; SESC Pompeia and SESC Belenzino in Sao Paulo; Goteborgs Konsthall, Sweden; Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Casa Asia, Madrid and Barcelona; ZKM Karlsruhe in Germany; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; amongst many others. She was a recipient of the ZegnArt Public Award, Milan in 2013 when her work was commissioned for the façade of the Dr. Bhaudaji Lad Museum in Mumbai besides several other honours. Her in situ work is being shown at the Museum Of Modern Art, New York in an exhibition titled Insecurities: tracing Displacement and Shelter that will run from 1st October 2016 to 22nd January 2017, besides her participation at the 10thBusan Biennale in Korea. 

Pushpamala N. (India) 

Born in Bangalore, Pushpamala has been called “the most entertaining artist-iconoclast of contemporary Indian art”. In her sharp and witty work as a photo- and video-performance artist, sculptor, writer, curator and provocateur, she seeks to subvert the dominant discourse. She is known for her strong feminist work and for her rejection of authenticity and embracing of multiple realities. As one of the pioneers of conceptual art in India and a leading figure in the feminist experiments in subject, material and language, her inventive work in sculpture, conceptual photography, video and performance have had a deep influence on art practice in India. 

Starting off her career as a sculptor, Pushpamala began using photography and video in the mid -1990s, creating tableaux and photo-romances in which she casts herself in various roles. Interested in history and the idea of cultural memory, she cites a wide range of references in her series of masquerades where she simultaneously inhabits and questions familiar frames from art history, photography, film, theatre and popular culture, thereby placing herself as the artist at the centre of social and political inquiry. 

Pushpamala lives and works in Bangalore. She exhibits widely in India and internationally. 

Iqra Tanveer (The Netherlands/Pakistan) 

Iqra Tanveer graduated from the Department of Visual Studies at Karachi University in 2007 and further went ahead to receive a postgraduate diploma in Art Education from the Beacon house National University in Lahore during the year 2009. Working with video, photo and installations, Tanveer has participated in several group and solo exhibitions across Pakistan, India, UAE, Hong Kong and Italy. Among the prominent is a solo exhibition titled “Between Earth and Sky” held at the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow. She was also a participant of Kochi Muzirus Biennale 2014. 

As a participant in The 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art she was granted a special mention award. She was the recipient of the Triangle Trust Residency in Dhaka, Bangladesh and currently is an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. 

Cristina Rodrigues (Portugal) 

Cristina Rodrigues is a Portuguese artist and architect born in Porto in 1980. She graduated in architecture and completed a Masters degree in medieval and renaissance history at the University of Porto, Portugal. She later moved to Manchester, United Kingdom, where she lectured at university and was awarded a PhD research grant from Manchester School of Art. 

By combining her many interests, namely culture, oral traditions and textiles, she created ‘The Blanket’, one of her most emblematic works. The original version of this contemporary art installation was made with Idanha-a-Nova’s traditional instrument, the adufe, cotton lace and satin ribbons. In situ, Cristina’s art installations and sculptures become jewels, lushly adorning ordinary objects with baroque detail. She masterfully combines creative flair with everyday items. Each of her art installations is locally inspired yet universal in meaning, and it intentionally touches the lives of all those involved in its artistic production. Her practice is marked by simple aesthetics, almost always based on ethnographic research. Her art celebrates the role of women in contemporary society, and explores themes such as emigration and contemporary society. 

Cristina’s work has been admired by several hundred thousand visitors across different parts of the world, in various exhibitions, such as: ‘Issues of Urbanization’, at GDMOA – Guangdong Museum Of Art, in Guangzhou, China; ‘21st Century Rural Museum’, at MUDE – Museu do Design e da Moda, in Lisbon, Portugal; ‘My Country Through Your Eyes’, at the MNA – Museu Nacional de Arqueologia of the Jeronimos Monastery, in Lisbon, Portugal; ‘The House’, at Zweigstelle Berlin, Germany; ‘Women From My Country’, at the Manchester Cathedral, United Kingdom; and many others. 

Jane Dyer (Australia) 

Jane Dyer is an Australian artist, based in Lisboa, Portugal. Her interdisciplinary practice spans Australia and Asia, with an increasing focus on east and west Europe. 

Her recent collaborations with British artist Wayne Warren has expanded the parameters of her practice, evidenced this year in Last things, at the Bury Art Museum in England, and It’s closing time for gardens of the west for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. She is recognised for her diverse and social engaged projects such as Ger to Ger, Mongolia National Art Gallery, Ulaanbaatar; The protest that never ends, ARTISTERIUM 5, Tbilisi; The Butterfly Effect, ARTBosphorus, Istanbul; URS27, a Taipei City Urban Redevelopment initiative; postEDEN, Today Art Museum, Beijing; and Spill, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei. 

In 2013 Dyer received the inaugural Individual Artist Award from the Australian Federal Government for arts achievements in Asia, and in 2005 a Commonwealth of Australia public service medal for contributions to arts and education. Arts agencies including Australia Council for the Arts and DFAT have funded major projects. Her large scale public and corporate commissions in Hong Kong, Beijing, Manila, Malaysia and Delhi are fuelled by direct experience living in Asia, initiated through artist residencies with e-Co.design - Sunhoo, Hangzhou;  Fubon Art Foundation; Taipei National University of the Arts; Asialink-Australia in Beijing and Taipei; and Lingnan University, Hong Kong. 

Dyer's text project Tell me something... is specifically developed for the 2016 Colombo Art Biennale. 

Ghada Khunji (Bahrain) 

Ghada Khunji is a graduate of the Parsons School of Design and the International Center of Photography's Documentary Program, both in New York. She started her career in the early nineties as a freelance photographer in the fashion industry in New York City, and spent two years as a research assistant for photo agencies, including Black Star and Magnum, followed by eight years as a printer and print manager for a high profile clientele including Annie Leibovitz and Steven Meisel. 

Khunji’s photographs are known for documenting both landscapes and people from all over the world and the inherent dignity of the human element.  In her latest work she focuses the lens on herself by exploring her innermost feelings, thoughts and identity as a woman. 

Khunji is the recipient of a significant number of awards, including the Lucie Discovery of the Year (2006), American Photo Magazine’s Image of the Year Award (2007), as well as the Golden Lights Award for Travel. She has exhibited widely in the US and Europe , and in recent years, in London, Spain, and throughout the Middle East. Khunji is a recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award (2012), where she won the first prize in the category of portraiture. One of her recent works was acquired by the Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives (ALJCI) in 2013. In the same year, Khunji was nominated for the Prix Pictet, the global award in photography and sustainability. 

Chila Kumari Burman (UK) 

For more than twenty years, visual artist Chila Kumari Burman has worked experimentally across print, collage, mixed media, paint and photography with a predominantly autobiographical focus, exploring the construction of classed, gendered, sexualised and ‘raced’ subjectivities. 

Having studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art, Burman generates powerful works of contemporary Asian feminisms. Informed by bold colour, form and line with direction from street politics, graffiti, Hindi film, fashion and found objects, Burman has confirmed her status as a leading figure among UK Black and Asian artists with her work being exhibited globally. 

She has had a number of captivating exhibitions  globally and locally e.g. at Victoria & Albert Museum and currently exhibiting at the Welcome Trust and British Council Collection in New Delhi and is  in the private collection of Lekhar Poddar and Sir Richard Branson  amongst others and  just recently been aquired by the Tate and Wolverhampton art gallery. 

Samson Ogiamien (Austria/Nigeria) 

Samson Ogiamien was born in Nigeria and has been working as a freelance artist in Graz, Austria for several years. After his training focusing on art and design as well as welding and construction he managed a sculptor’s workshop and came to Austria in 2004. Here the young artist attended the two-year master class in sculpture at Ortweinschule Graz – college, from which he graduated with distinction in summer 2007. Ogiamien’s works are based on the traditions of his home country and usually show the human form in semi-abstract style, often using “contemporary” materials such as concrete, iron, varnish, resin. It is important to him that people less familiar with art should also be able to understand his works. Samson Ogiamien likes to help people experience and express their own creativity. Thus the artist passes on his talents in workshops. Samson Ogiamien sees his art as a bridge between cultures and as an opportunity of bringing people together. 

Integral to CAB’s vision for 2016 is the establishment of dialogue between local and international artists, curator Mitha explains: “My ultimate vision is to create a South Asian Artistic Hub in Colombo that is inspirational - an artistic journey that captivates the imagination whilst exploring new ideas with young people, and with the local communities who live in Sri Lanka whilst welcoming international delegates. At the end of the day, art is transformative; it brings smiles to many faces and challenges the cerebral mindset.” 

Here’s a few more artists from around the world taking part this year. 

Sumit Sakar (UK) 

Sumit Sarkar is a visual artist based in the North West of England, whose artwork takes the form of digital and canvas paintings, digital sculpture, 3D animation, video mapping and work inspired by graffiti. The content of his personal work ranges from the fantastical characters of Sumit’s KrikSix world, to his modern interpretation of the Hindu Gods, Ananta, through to his environmental sculptural graffiti work, Kerst. 

Sumit also works as a designer, illustrator, curator and workshop leader, and is involved in various live art events around the UK, from live aerosol art and drawing battles to a live digital painting and sculpture. He has exhibitions in and around the UK, with solo exhibitions at Lanternhouse in Ulverston, and the Cornerhouse in Manchester. Sumit is currently producing MESH a group exhibition of British fine art sculptors working with 3D print. 

Samsul Alam Helal (Bangladesh) 

Samsul Alam Helal is a documentary photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He completed his graduation in photography from Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. His recent work Love Studio depicts the portraits of a working class community where an old studio in Dhaka transforms into a neighborhood venue to represent the dreams, hopes and desires of the factory workers, their families and unemployed neighbors. In his portrait series on Hijra (transgender community), the camera hones in on the unfolding drama, nothing but a short razzmatazz, that reads like a narrative, and exotic hieroglyphics as the protagonists represented make dancing and singing for an absent audience, or as an end in itself. 

Helal wants to tell the stories of people and that especially of minority groups and the neglected classes. Through his photographs, he explores their identity, dreams and longings to raise our curiosity and question. He often likes to stage in a studio setup where dramatic moods and vibrant colors are loudly presented. In oppose to mere fiction, Helal’s work represents a reality in an alternate space. 

Pavitra Wickramasinghe (Canada/Sri Lanka) 

Pavitra Wickramasinghe is a multidisciplinary artist mainly concerned with new ways of conceptualizing the moving image and conventions of seeing. Her current work is an exploration of notions of traveling, fluidity of place and memory. She uses light and shadows as extensions of the projected image to create installations where the viewer occupies filmic space instead of being physically removed from the work. 

Selected exhibitions include: OBORO (Montréal),  Kunst Kraft Werk  (Germany), SIGHTINGS,  Leonard & Bina EllenArt Gallery (Montréal), Yeosu InternationalArt Festival (South Korea), Centre des Arts Enghien-­‐les-­‐Bains (France),  Cable Factory (Finland), among others. She is a recipient of numerous residencies, awards and grants including, Art Omi (NY), La Chambre Blanche (Québec), Pépinières Européennes pour jeunes artistes, (Spain), UNESCO-­‐Aschberg Bursaries for Artists Programme, Changdong Art Studio, National Museum of Contemporary Art (South Korea), Canada Council for the Arts and The Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. 

Naiza Khan (UK/Pakistan) 

Naiza Khan explores ideas of movement and boundaries, the breaching of borders, as well as a perceptual and textural building of terrain, as it is linked to witness political and social realities. Through a range of media, including drawing, video works and sculpture, she brings to the fore considerations of spillage, spontaneous making and transformation of space. 

Khan trained at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Her work has been exhibited widely, including the forthcoming Kochi Biennale, 2016, the Shanghai Biennale, Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, as well as her solo museum exhibition Karachi Elegies, at the Broad Museum, Michigan. Khan curated The Rising Tide: New Directions in Art from Pakistan 1990-2010 at the Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi and is a founding member and former Coordinator of the Vasl Artists’ Collective. She was member of the Faculty of Visual Art at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi (1991-2009). 

Khan is the recipient of the Prince Claus Award, 2013. Currently Senior Advisor at the Visual Studies Department, Karachi University, Naiza works between London and Karachi. 

Saima Rasheed (UK/Pakistan) 

Saima Rasheed lives and works in Derbyshire as an artist, book illustrator and art tutor. She specialises in Indian and Persian miniature paintings and is a 2006 recipient of The Arts Council of England Award. She has had solo exhibitions in the UK, France and Pakistan. Her work has also been shown in group exhibitions in international settings. 

From the long tradition of Indo-Persian miniature paintings, Saima combines techniques from historic imagery with her own contemporary and sensitive aesthetics, resulting in her unique style. Her work addressed gender, social and political issues. Technically her paintings employ subtle brush strokes and microscopic rendering technique like those from a miniature painting are painstakingly employed to produce an image, this in turn leaves poetical outlines and gives these paintings their distinctive character. 

Video Jam (UK/Sri Lanka) 

Video Jam is a self-initiated event series which seeks to explore the relationship between moving image and live sound. Each Video Jam event features a wide variety of contemporary short films with a particular emphasis on experimental and independent moving image. For each of these films, a different musical act or sound artist is selected to compose an original soundtrack of their own interpretation to be performed as a live accompaniment. Video Jam was initiated from scratch by a group of 3 emerging producers, curators and artists in 2011 as a grassroots venture. To date, they have curated 39 events in the UK and beyond, including a 3 part UK tour, a residency in Ibiza, events in New York & Argentina and commissions from many leading organisations in the UK including The Whitworth, FACT, Manchester Art Gallery and Abandon Normal Devices Festival. 

Video Jam has showcased many first works by emerging regional film talent, providing visibility within programmes featuring award winning international artists such as Jeremy Deller, Phil Solomon, Ryan Gander, Soda Jerk, Haruka Mitani & Ron Fricke. They have screened films between 1 minutes and 40 minutes of all genres, scored by musical acts as diverse as opera, ceilidh bands, percussion, electronic, guitar orchestras, harpists and iPhones. Music highlights include working with Krautrock legend Dieter Moebius, tribal pop/synth band Flamingods, mallet guitarists Ex-Easter Island Head and electronic artist Joe Snape. 

Kirti Kaushal Joshi (Nepal) 

Kirti Kaushal Joshi is a visual artist based in Kathmandu. He gained his BA in Fine Arts from Tribhuwan University, Nepal followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, in Beijing. As an artist he is interested in contemporary socio-political subjects and works in different mediums. For Kirti, art is a way to express infinite thoughts, dialogue that can be transferred to visuals, it is zeal of making and creating, and executing as a body of work that makes sense. It is a process of learning and discovering. He works with objects that have connection with the subject matter particularly working in medium like installation, I think objects are already a piece of work, it depends upon the interpretation. His artworks are result of self-analysis, a question, reaction, realization, suggestion, or respond regarding to the circumstances around us. 

Kirti has participated in exhibitions internationally including: Xin Jiang International Arts Biennale, China (2014); Kathmandu International Arts Festival (2012); SAARC Artist Camp, India (2011) to name a few. 

Aroosa Rana (Pakistan) 

Aroosa Naz Rana is a visual artist and an educator, currently doing her Masters degree in Art Education from Beaconhouse Universtity. She graduated in December 2003 from National College of Arts with Distinction in B.F.A degree. She graduated as a painter but currently working in digital media, photography and video. 

Rana’s art is a constant query about “who is a viewer and who is being viewed” and the position of a viewer in her art works. She acknowledges that before the advent of advanced technologies, fact and fiction resided in two distinguishable categories. In art, for example, it was possible to differentiate between a fiction and realism. In contemporary life and vis-à-vis in contemporary art, however, the difference between fact and fiction has been complicated by experiences that derive from simulations, virtual reality and digital manipulations and by such crossover products as designer knock-offs, tribute bands, and docudramas. Her works of art challenge viewers in the same way that they are challenged by contemporary technologies – to decipher fact from fiction. 

Since her graduation Aroosa Rana has been part of several Group Shows in her home country and abroad including “Exit” Dhaka Art Summit | Dhaka | Bangladesh | 2014 and “ Crossing Over” Delhi | India| 2013 and “ Extra| Ordinary” Karachi| Pakistan| 2013, curated by Rashid Rana. Aroosa Rana had her first Solo Show in “Subverting Desire”(2007),  and second solo show “Suspended Disbelief” (2013) in Lahore| Pakistan. 

Aroosa Naz Rana lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan. 

Jeanno Gaussi 

Jeanno Gaussi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. Initially focused on film and video art, her work now transcends genre boundaries. Using a narrative concept as jumping off point, she creates installations that include video, photography, objects, and texts. A central theme of her artistic oeuvre is the exploration of those places where she’s worked, travelled, and experienced meaningful encounters. Her work engages with mechanisms of remembrance, the search for identity, and the social and cultural processes associated with them. Gaussi has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including the DOCUMENTA (13) and the 12th Havana Biennale. She lives and works in Berlin. 

Jean-François Boclé (France) 

Jean-François Boclé is based in Paris. He was born in Fort-de-France. He left Martinique when he was 15 and lived in there nearly 17 years before age 20 years. His geographical exile of his immeasurable island activated at 15 a daily practice of writing, drawing, and painting. 

He was trained between 1992 and 1998 at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris fine art school, preceded by 3 years at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Bourges. 

He participates regularly in international Biennials such as Bienal Centroamericana (2016, Puerto Limon and San José, Costa Rica), Dak'Art Biennial (2016, Senegal, Contours - invited curatorships), Subabiennale (2016, Senegal), Bienal 43 Salón (inter)Nacional de Artistas (2013, Medellín, Colombia), the First Biennial of Thessaloniki (2007, Greece) among many others. 

We see his work, among others, at the Saatchi Gallery (2015, London), at Para Site (2016, Hong Kong), at Bétonsalon Centre d'art et de recherche (2016, Eva Barois de Caevel's workshop accomplishments, Paris), at Ely House-Mallet/The Auction Room (2015, London), at Fuego Fuego (2015, San José, Costa Rica), at Trisaktri University (2015, Jakarta, Indonesia), at the Philharmonie de Paris/Cité de la Musique (2013), at the National Museum of World Culture (2013, Stockholm), at the Queens Museum (2012, New York), the KAdE Kunsthal (2012, Netherland), at the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (2006, France), and at the Centre for Contemporary Art Le Parvis (2005, Ibos, France). 

Eva Priyanka Wegener (Germany/Sri Lanka) 

Eva was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Germany and currently lives between those two countries and continents. She has studied political science, sociology and contemporary dance in Germany and Yoga all over Europe and Asia. She recently opened “Sri Yoga Shala”, a center for Yoga and Arts in the south western part of Sri Lanka (www.sriyogashala.com). Rooted in the multiplicity of her movement experience and practice, her interests are socio-political and mind-body-spirit related. She´s curious about creating awareness through inner and outer movement and stillness, moving stillness and dynamic awareness within oneself and a (spontaneous) community. She investigates and plays with the dialogue and the roles between “performer” and “audience”. 

Ruby Chishti (USA/Pakistan) 

She is primarily a representational sculptor, her work is largely autobiographical in nature. Ruby was formally educated at the National College of Art in Lahore, Pakistan. Over the last 17 years, she has produced a series of lyrical sculptures and installations that touch on such issues as Islamic myths, gender politics, migration, and memory, universal theme of love, loss and of being human. 

Solo exhibitions include Nest of Memories at Vermont Studio Center in 2006, There is no hero, Canvas gallery, Karachi 2008 In the vast valley of my heart there is a place, Green Cardamom gallery London 2009, Placed displaced, misplaced, 2010 at Rohtas Gallery Lahore, We leave, we never leave, we return endlessly at Twelve gate Arts Philadelphia 2015 and many others. 

She has been showing internationally since 2000. Graduated from National College of Arts Lahore Pakistan, Ruby Chishti now lives and works in Brooklyn NY. Her work has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers along with Chicago Tribune, NY Times and books including, unveiling the visible and The eye still seeks: Pakistani Contemporary Art by Salima Hashmi & Matand Khosla.