Raja'a Khalid

Raja’a Khalid (born 1984, Saudi Arabia) is a Dubai-based artist and writer. She received her MFA in Fine Art from Cornell University, where she was also the recipient of the Cornell Council for the Arts Grant in 2013. Recent awards and residencies include the NYU Abu Dhabi FIND Research Fellowship, 2014; the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen International Fellowship for Art and Theory; 2015, the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Guest Residency, 2015 and the International Curatorial and Studio Program Residency, 2015. Her work has been shown in New York, London, Dubai and Vienna.

Raja’a Khalid’s practice looks at contemporary narratives of class, luxury, and consumer cultures, especially those that link the Arabian Gulf region with the world at large. She likes to uncover how present-day neo-liberal Gulf economies strive to articulate ‘culture’ and ‘heritage’ and through her current work aims to subtly analyse the Gulf’s own streaming motifs of soft power and notions of wealth, masculinity, game, athleticism, adornment and crypto-religiosity. Outcomes of her research driven process are usually in the form of photographs, text-based works, installations and sculptural abstractions. Mediums employed include found documents, industrial processes, systems and rhetoric, for example wholesale supplies, patents and Business-to-business goods and services.

Raja'a Khalid exhibited 'FASTEST WITH THE MOSTEST' at Tashkeel in 2017, marking the culmination of her participation in Tashkeel's Critical Practice Programme 2017.