Sadia Shirazi
Research Area
Education
PhD (Cornell)
MArch (MIT)
About
Sadia Shirazi is a historian of modern and contemporary art, specializing in transregional histories of South Asia, the Indian Ocean and its diasporas. Shirazi is a Canada Research Chair, Tier 2, in the History of South Asian art, architecture and visual culture. She received her PhD from Cornell University and has taught at Johns Hopkins University, the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP), Cooper Union, National College of the Arts, and The New School. Prior to joining UBC, Shirazi was curator of international art at the Tate Modern.
Shirazi’s research interests include histories of art, architecture and decolonization, curatorial and museum studies, art and activism, race and racialization, migration and diaspora, gender and sexuality, translation studies, and black and postcolonial thought. Their current book project is a history of decolonial, feminist artists that bridges the Indian subcontinent, the Indian Ocean, Japan, Europe and the United States during the second half of the twentieth century.
In addition to their academic work, Shirazi is a writer, curator and sometimes architect/artist. She has written essays for numerous peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, and artists’ catalogues. As a critic, they have contributed to publications including e-flux, ArtForum, Frieze, and C Magazine. Shirazi is a recipient of The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Shirazi has curated exhibitions and public programs at the Tate Modern in London; The Kitchen, Queens Museum, Cooper Union, the Lower East Side Printshop and EFA Project Space in New York City; Khoj International Artists’ Association in New Delhi; and the Drawing Room in Lahore. Shirazi has exhibited work at Arika (2024); the 16th Venice Architecture Biennial (2018); Performance Space New York (2018); and the Devi Art Foundation (2016). Shirazi has also served on juries and nominating committees, most recently as juror for the 7th edition of the Jameel Prize: Moving Images.
Teaching
Research
Transregional histories of modern and contemporary art and architecture across South Asia, the Indian Ocean, and its diasporas.