Nada Ali’s work is composed of a wide range of materials and media where she is taking inspiration from the concepts driving them. She usually departs from personal experiences and expands them to collective ones. With the power of imagination, she weaves images and stories together into multiple narratives that may simplify our chaotic world. Nada Ali was born in 1988 and holds a Master’s degree from the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm, 2021. Previously she gained a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts specializing in Mural Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, Syria. 

The Making and Breaking of an Icon (ongoing)

In times of political, ecological, and social crises, The Making and Breaking of an Icon deals with the uncertainty we need to face in relation to past, present, and future scenarios. Nada Ali’s work takes its starting point in the idea of iconoclasm and, more directly, a self-made ceramic sculpture in more-than-human size with several arms and hands, broken and repaired several times. The heavy faceless sculpture that seems to be hugging itself is made of clay and signals a living material that has its own agency, carrying the remains of both humans and nonhumans' lives. 

The Making and Breaking of an Icon is a work of unsettlement; the ongoing cycle of breakage and reparation is a symptom of its concept, manifesting through performance, video work, and installation. In this work, Nada Ali deals with questions of loss, grief, and guilt. How much we can carry and how we can prepare for the unforeseen.