Kaph Books

Aseel AlYaqoub

Aseel AlYaqoub holds a MA in fine arts from Pratt Institute, New York (2015) and a BA from Chelsea College of Art, London (2009). She co-curated the Kuwait Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, (Space Wars) with Yousef Awaad, Saphiya Abu Al-Maati, and Asaiel AlSaeed. AlYaqoub has participated in exhibitions including Foreman Gallery at Bishop’s University in Canada, The Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Doha, and the Sultan Gallery in Kuwait. Her work and essays have been featured in various publications such as Deserts Are Not Empty edited by Samia Henni, Iridescent Kuwait: Petro-Modernity and Urban Visual Culture Since the Mid-Twentieth Century by Laura Hindelang and Pfeil Magazine by Montez Press. AlYaqoub's research-based and interdisciplinary practice ranges from writing, drawing, and printmaking to video, sculpture, and performance. Various visual languages characterize her work, which is defined by her inquisitorial and academic approach that travels across the fields of history, architecture, and cultural sociology. Her explorations revolve around the inherited methodologies used for nationbuilding, the role of state apparatuses in defining nationhood, and the nation's processes for self-identification after imperial dissolution and reattachment.