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Diana Ali

Nottingham
Visual Artist, International Independent Curator, Fine Art Lecturer, TV presenter (BB1, BBC4, Ch4) , workshop leader, creative mentor, board member Nottingham Women's Centre
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Diana Ali was born in Rusholme, Manchester to Bengali parents and is now based in Nottingham, UK. She actively works nationally and internationally taking her practice to different cities and spaces. Diana has a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University and a Masters in Contemporary Fine Art Curating/ Practice from Sheffield Hallam University. She is also a Fellowship in Higher Education (HFEA Status) and CLORE leadership status. 

She is a visual artist, international curator, creative mentor, art lecturer and tutor, workshop leader, NWC board member and a-n (The Artist Information Company) council member and works in television. 

Her practice involves fictional narratives, drawing, installation and a play on language and text through direct animation. She is interested in correspondence, communication, connectivity and collaboration and this is extended through her international curatorial projects.

Her work is about distance, travel and reaching out. She travels, gets lost, and collects found and hidden images embedding narratives within them. She documents stories from her own and others experiences. Some are about political responses and reactions, cultural and language boundaries, human interactions; bringing different fragments of cultures into one space.

As a Visual Artist, she has exhibited regionally, nationally at the TINAG festival, London and Site Gallery, Sheffield and solo at the Airspace Gallery, Hanley. Her international exhibitions include The Library Artspace, Victoria, Australia, The Crafts Fair in San Francisco, The Roaming Biennial in Tehran and the Other Asia’s exhibition ‘ReDo Pakistan’ in Karachi, Pakistan and has been featured in The Disarmory Newspaper in New York.

To date she has independently curated fourteen shows. National projects include ‘Up & Coming’ at the CUC in Liverpool, an event showcasing 60 emerging national and international artists, ‘Subversive Correspondence’ featuring fifty artists in London and Bristol and ‘Dialogues: A Fake Romance?’ in Swansea with thirty artists. Internationally, she has curated in countries with cultural divides; ‘A State of Un-Play’ at Atelier 35 in Romania, ‘Engagement and Entrapment’ in Israel and Palestine, Cyprus and South Korea. ‘Loss & Lucidity’ in California and Lisbon, which was her largest show featuring 58 international artists.

She is currently working with promoting and advocating the importance of creative thinking and making in different sectors outside of art. She has given presentations and workshops at the Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham University, Southwark Cathedral, KPMG, Archaeology groups (DNMGS), Haringey Council (business & Art) and schools and communities centres (well-being, domestic violence issues, EDI)..She currently works at Loughborough University and Open College of the Arts (University of the Creative Arts)

 

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What Do Axis Artists Do All Day? Diana Ali

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