Nida Ramzan

Born in 1988 in Faisalabad (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Faisalabad (Pakistan)

Nida Ramzan received her BFA from Faisalabad G.C. University (Institute of Art and Design, Faisalabad Institute of Textile and Fashion Design) in 2010, subsequently obtaining her MFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2014. Her work has been exhibited in several group shows nationally, as well as in Venice. She currently teaches at the National Textile University, Faisalabad. Her art practice, manifesting itself both in video and on canvas, focuses on the female body and its multifaceted relationship with everyday objects in various spaces and environments. Ramzan explains the basis of her practice: “On a daily basis, I find myself overwhelmingly confronted with images and societal prescriptions of what it means, as a woman, to be ‘beautiful’. I have decided to address the illusions and realities that exist for women faced with this aspect of contemporary culture.”

In her video work on view at the Karachi Biennale 2017, Ramzan has experimented with the division of the filmed material, so that the elements, once whole, undergo a transformation, merging the natural form of the body with the other compositional objects and elements to create a shifting, two-dimensional sculpture. The work explores the pervasive contemporary issue of the premium placed on the appearance of women, visually symbolizing the resultant obsession with expending energy into self-presentation and re-creation. Playing on Ramzan’s own experience with textiles, the male figure measuring and re-measuring the female form offers an artistic critique of the psychological, corporeal and cultural implications fostered by the contemporary human condition.