Nura Qureshi (b.1977 in Germany) studied photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and is an art photographer and mixed media visual artist. Her photojournalism practice centers on historical documentation. In 2008, Qureshi was awarded a grant to travel to Cambodia and document survivors of the Khmer Rouge. She has also documented concentration camps in Europe, sites and participants of the Mau Mau resistance in Kenya, and medical missions in Ghana and Guatemala. In her art photography and mixed media work, Qureshi investigates sites and practices connected to humanity’s dark histories, such as those of war, colonialism, and genocide. Based on archival and interview research, Qureshi’s work explores themes related to collective memory, the historical archive, and people’s relationships to their shared past. Working across time periods and continents, Qureshi interrogates the violent contradictions of historical and contemporary systems of power to construct psychologically and emotionally impactful – and often unsettling – visual environments.
Her current project reimagines the history of the Mau Mau resistance in Kenya. Qureshi uses landscape and portrait photography, combined with print and ink, to recreate scenes depicting Mau Mau rituals of initiation and surrender, as well as British infrastructures of oppression. The goal of the series is to fill the historical record by offering an alternative interpretation to what has been documented in military accounts, academic analyses, and oral histories.
“Are You Calling Me a Dog?” has been shortlisted for the 2018 Contemporary African Photography Prize as well as has been selected to be exhibited at the Addis Foto Fest in December 2018.
Qureshi’s work has been featured in a solo and number of group exhibitions: In 2016/ 2017 “The Land in Between” and “UNI-FORM/MULTI-FORM” were exhibited at Roots Contemporary Gallery in Nairobi, Kenya. She was selected for the “EyeContact” 25 Shortlist in the 2015 PhotoWerkBerlin Award. In 2011, “The Itching Hijab” was part of the Biennial Juried Photography Exhibit at the Edward Hopper House and “Plastic Flowers Dancing in Russia’s Backyard – Tajikistan” was exhibited at the Gene Frankel Theater in New York. In 2009/2010, New York’s Proteus Gowanus Gallery and The Frying Pan showed “Photographs Inspired by Unearthed Histories Around New York” in their “Underwater New York” exhibit.
Exhibition List:
December 2018: “Addis Fotofest 2018” Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
October – December 2018: “Beyond the Tracks” Solo Show 197 Lenana Road, Nairobi Curated by Samantha Ripa di Meana, Roots Contemporary Gallery
18.Sept. – 4.November 2018: “My l’udia - We the People” Central Slovakian Gallery, Horná 55,97401, Banská Bystrica, Curated by Agnieszka Kilian
August - December 2017: “The Land in Between” 197 Lenana Road, Nairobi. Curated by Samantha Ripa di Meana, Roots Contemporary Gallery
11.May- 14.May 2017: “Pop-Up Store L’EQUIPEE” Le Perchoir, 14 Rue Crespin du Gast 75011, Paris
17.Oct. - 16.December 2016: “UNI-FORM/MULTI-FORM” (or mistaken identity) 197 Lenana Road, Nairobi. Curated by Samantha Ripa di Meana, Roots Contemporary Gallery
2. - 29. November 2015: “PhotoWerkBerlin Award 2015- Germany” EyeContact - The 25 Shortlist Kulturamt, Berlin
22. - 24. May 2011: “Plastic Flowers Dancing in Russia’s Backyard- Tajikistan” Gene Frankel Theatre 24 Bond Street, New York
15. May - 11. July 2011: “Biennial Juried Photography Exhibit 2010” Edward Hopper House, Nyack, New York
7. October 2009 & June 2010: “Underwater New York” Photographs inspired by objects found underwater around New York Proteus Gowanus Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
15. January - 19. April 2008: “Diversity of Devotion: Celebrating New York’s Spiritual Harmony”
111 Front Street – Gallery 214, Brooklyn, NY & Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Lobby
13. February - 21. April 2007: “Footprint: Portrait of a Brooklyn Neighborhood”
7. October - 3. November 2006: "2006 Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant Recipient"
Grand Space, Brooklyn Brooklyn Public Library, Main Branch: Grand Lobby
October 2007: “Sudamerica- Un Solo Pueblo” Bürgerhaus, Bremen, Germany
