Aqsa Arif in Conversation with Priyesh Mistry

Aqsa Arif is a Scottish-Pakistani interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in Glasgow. Her work explores hybrid identity, displacement, and cultural dissonance through speculative fiction, weaving folklore, mythology, and cinematic language. Arif was nominated for the major national touring exhibition Jerwood Survey III (2023-2024). She was awarded the 20/20 residency by UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute, hosted at Kelvingrove, culminating in her first solo museum exhibition and 20 new permanent acquisitions across UK public art collections. She has been selected for residencies at Hospitalfield, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh Printmakers, The Hugo Burge Foundation and Cove Park.

Priyesh Mistry is Associate Curator for Modern and Contemporary Projects at the National Gallery where he manages an ambitious programme connecting contemporary artists to its historic collections. Recent projects include ‘Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different’, ‘Paula Rego: Crivelli’s Garden’, and ‘Katrina Palmer: The Touch Report’, among many others. Previously, he was Assistant Curator, International Art at Tate Modern where he co-curated exhibitions, including the Hyundai Commission 2019: Kara Walker in the Turbine Hall, alongside numerous collection displays of artists from the South Asia subcontinent. Priyesh is a member of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the British School at Rome, sits on the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group led by the Mayor of London’s office, a Trustee of Studio Voltaire, London, and is a member of the 2025 Turner Prize Jury panel.

The exhibition Raindrops of Rani uses elements of South Asian folklore to explore themes of fractured identity, displacement, and cultural synthesis through fantasy and world-building. The show draws on the folk tragedy Heer Ranjha and in particular the forced separation of a South Asian Princess who now finds herself in a council flat in Glasgow dealing with the pressures to assimilate in a hostile environment.