Osman Yousefzada is a British born
interdisciplinary artist and writer.


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Osman’s practice revolves around modes of storytelling, merging autobiography with fiction and ritual. His work is concerned with the representation and rupture of the migrational experience and makes reference to socio-political issues of today. These themes are explored through moving image, installations, text works, sculpture, garment making and performance.

Yousefzada is a research practitioner at the Royal College of Art, London and a visiting fellow at Cambridge University. His work has been shown at international institutions including: Whitechapel Gallery, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (solo 2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, V&A (solo 2022): Wapping Project, London; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Ringling Museum, Florida; Lahore Museum, Pakistan; Design Museum, London; Lahore Biennale, Pakistan; and Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh.

Yousefzada’s contemporary art practice has been described as "defiant", where the participating bodies throughout his work are presented as part objects that refuse to identify or conform. Most recently, his series of solo interventions titled What Is Seen & What Is Not was shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. Across three site-specific works, this commission responded to the 75th anniversary of Pakistan independence and explored themes of displacement, movement, migration, and climate change. Furthermore, Yousefzada has been invited to exhibit at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, a solo show hosted by the V&A and the Fondazione Berengo at the Palazzo Franchetti.

In his first book, The Go-Between (2022), set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, alternative masculinities compete with strict gender roles while female erasure and honour-based violence are committed, even as empowering female friendships prevail. This book was long listed for the Polari Prize, winning the Slightly Foxed memoir prize and reviewed by Stephen Fry as "one of the greatest childhood memoirs of our time."






Residencies


2021/23 Royal College of Art, Sculpture Studio

2022 Indus School of Art & Architecture, Textile Studio 

2020 Birmingham School of Art, Printmaking Studio


Studio Based Practice Led Research


Royal College of Art,
Sculpture via Textiles & Ceramics
‘A non-linear practice model to understand archives & memories of marginalised migrant communities through reconstructing materials’ PHD Research


Monographs


2022 The Go-Between – Canongate London - A memoir through the eyes of a child growing up in a closed migrant community in central England

2022 What is Seen & What is Not – Catalogue to accompany solo V&A show. Essays contributed by, Hammad Nasar, Catherine Ince, Grant Watson

2018 Being Somewhere Else – Ikon Gallery catalogue to accompany Osman Yousefzada’s solo exhibition with contributions from Diana Campbell Betancourt


Panel Talks / Lectures / Activism


Venice Architecture Biennale, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, Whitechapel Gallery, Royal College of Art, Central St Martins, Ikon Gallery, Facebook, Sky Arts, Sky News, BCU Birmingham School of Art, Newcastle University, Hays Literary Festival, British Council, Alternative Art Fair, Ubud Writers Festival - Bali, Edinburg Literary Festival, Cambridge Literary Festival, Oxford Literary Festival, Lahore Literary Festival - Pakistan, Indus School of Art & Architecture - Pakistan, Bradford Literary Festival, Borris Festival of Ideas - Ireland, Charleston Literary Festival.

Press


Financial Times
A Migrants Tale Laid Bare

Studio International
Opening Doors for others people is key to what I do

Sculpture Magazine
Looking back to go forward

Another Magazine
A powerful new exhibition explores the migrant experience.

The Guardian
It can’t be ignored: Osman Yousefzada on his gigantic artwork  

Arts Newspaper
The Worlds largest Canvas 

The New York Times
On Racism and British Fashion

Dazed Magazine
Artist Osman Yousefzada’s new show is a personal reflection on migration

Vogue UK
Osman Yousefzada Launches A New Exhibition On The Experience Of Migration

Refinery29
Designer Osman Explores His Mother's Oppression In New Exhibit

Flash Art
Volcano Extravaganza 2018

i-D Magazine VICE
"I left my heart in stromboli" - Interview with Osman Yousefzada

Observer
With His Fashion Line and Now His Art, Osman Yousefzada Pays Tribute to His Mom

Samdani Art Foundation
Volcano Extravaganza | Total Anastrophies

The Guardian
Osman Yousefzada: 'Shades of unity in hope of a new brown and black coalition'

SHOWStudio
Osman Yousefzada On Changing the Fashion System

The Wall Street Journal
Barneys New York Sets An Art-Filled Scene

Business of Fashion
Fashion’s Darkest Truth

The Voice of Fashion
Osman Yousefzada on South Asian Design, European Faces and Brown Hands

LUX Mag
Confined Artists – Free Spirits: Photographs from Lockdown

Plinth
Osman Yousefzada, Being Somewhere Else at Ikon Gallery


Published Articles


2023    
Conversations From Calais
‘Where do you really come from?’
other writers include Ai Wei Wei

The Observer / The Guardian
’Nothing prepares you for the moment’

2022        
The Observer / The Guardian  
Shades of unity in hope of new brown and black coalition

Vogue
Osman Yousefzada’s Memoir, Living a Creative Life

The Times
‘I was the go-between for two worlds’

2020
British Vogue
On How Coronavirus Has Devastated “Forgotten Voices” In The BAME Community

2013-2019
The Collective (Editor & Publisher)
A zine collaborated with many creatives including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Prem Sahib, Stella Bottai