Alia Farid - A Sounding of the Earth

Slated for fall 2025, the Glyptotek and Copenhagen Contemporary (CC) are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Denmark by artist Alia Farid.

The exhibition is the third and final component of an ambitious series of exhibitions titled Hosting Histories - Revisiting Cultural Heritage of the Middle East and Beyond (2023-2025) developed in conjunction between Glyptotek and CC.

Alia Farid (b.1985) lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. Her work explores the relationship of industrial practices and hand-made objects as a method of critical inquiry into the experience of being and belonging amid global precarity.

Whether sculptures of drinking fountains in the shape of water vessels, enlarged amulets combining ancient and modern materials, or films witnessing the ecological consequences of extractive industries in the Global South, her work pushes against colonial narratives and explores how materials and forms transmute across time and space.

Header image: Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut / Hamburg

Alia Farid (b. 1985) lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from la Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico (San Juan), a Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Visual Arts Program in MIT (Cambridge) and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies and Critical Theory from the Programa d’Estudis Independents MACBA (Barcelona). In 2023, she received The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award and in 2023-2024 she was the David and Roberta Logie Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Alia Farid has had solo exhibitions in Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; and CAC Passerelle.

Recent and upcoming group shows include participation in the Geneva Biennale Sculpture Garden, Whitney Biennial, Diriyah Biennale, Bienal de São Paulo, Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2001 in MoMA PS1, Yokohama Triennale and Asia Pacific Triennial. She has forthcoming solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum Houston in partnership with Rivers Institute, and in Detroit Institute of Arts.

Unique collaboration

The exhibition is the second in the series of the three-year collaboration between CC and the Glyptotek titled Hosting Histories: Revisiting Cultural Heritage of the Middle East and Beyond, which seeks to revisit the cultural heritage of antiquity and its significance today.

Between 2023 and 2025, three contemporary artistic practices will each create a two-part exhibition that relates to the Glyptotek’s ancient collections and is co-hosted by both institutions.

The exhibition will take place at the Glyptotek from October 2, 2025, to May 31, 2026, and at Copenhagen Contemporary from October 2, 2025, to March 23, 2026.