Artistic Practice Film: Lina Hashim

Born to Iraqi parents, Lina Hashim came to Denmark as a refugee in 1992. She has sought to balance being a woman with Middle Eastern roots and life in a Western culture since then – and, eventually, found a way to do it as an artist. In her work, personal and performative, she uncompromisingly explores and challenges her own experiences and the fastened notions of others.

Recurring through Lina Hashim’s work is the theme of the investigation and the uncovering of the contemporary practice and implementation of Islam as religion – especially those aspects hidden from public view. Based on her own Muslim upbringing and schooling, she seeks to examine the misrepresentation of otherness she experiences through a critical and nuanced (rather than intentionally blasphemous) dialogue with the religion.

MORE ABOUT LINA HASHIM
Lina Hashim is an artist, performer, and a critic at the online media I Do Art. Born in Kuwait City in 1978, she lives and works in Copenhagen. Hashim graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2020 and has exhibited at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is a recipient of the 15. Juni Fonden’s Honorary Award and has been nominated for international awards such as the Rudin Prize and the Foam Paul Huf Award.

On winning the 15. Juni Fonden’s Honorary Award for her work The Touch, the art critic and Fonden committee member Mai Misfeldt explained the committee’s justification:

“Lina Hashim has a background in anthropology, from the photography school Fatamorgana and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. With her Danish-Iraqi background, an early Muslim education and a foot in two cultures, she draws on experiences from all these fields in her artistic practice. In her performance, the artist can appear doubtful, searching, and honest. The marvellous thing is that she is, without doubt, all three, an uncompromising artist of great control and bravery”.

In 2023, she was selected for AHC’s programme Artistic Practice, which includes a live event where the artist meets an international figure of their choice. In November 2023, Hashim met Ruba Katrib, the curator of MoMA PS1, for a conversation on her practice as part of the Performa Biennial in New York.

MORE ON ARTISTIC PRACTICE
Artistic Practice is an outreach programme for established artists in Denmark who have both made their mark in a ground-breaking and innovative way and who, while mostly exhibited in Denmark, are considered to have international potential. The programme is centred on a video portrait and an interview with an international curator who focuses on the individual artist’s practice, aiming both to communicate it and to offer support with a view to building an international network.

As the artists are selected by a jury, it is not possible to apply for admission to the programme. Artistic Practice is organised in collaboration with editor and project manager Karina Lykkesborg.

The programme was initiated by the Bikuben Foundation, which ran the programme from 2019 to 2022. Artistic Practice continues to be supported by the Bikuben Foundation.

All the earlier films are available here.

Read more about the programme and the current artists in Artistic Practice here.