CV

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Hussein Shikha’s practice moves through design, art, and research engages with complex symbologies that reflect his heritage and family history through equally complex pixel drawings. His practice functions as a manipulated Beautiful recollection rooted in his PlayStation Memory Card and personal lived experiences, operating as a digital iteration of an emotional atemporality.

His work entails experimental film, animation, textile and interactive installations. Hussein takes the manipulation and transformation of the southern Iraqi carpet (with all its philosophies) as a starting point to understand visual arts from Eastern and non-Eastern perspectives, employing mnemonic associations, refrential to spiritual signifiers reaffirming his own inherited ways of knowing and doing.

Using pixellation as a tool to present a fragmented reality that needs to be experienced in its fragmentation, through repetition, variation, and interconnected forms. Rather than following a linear narrative, it searches for meaning through heightened dispersed associations, inviting viewers into moments of reflection, recognition, and spiritual resonance. Pixelation becomes both a visual signifier and philosophical tool that fragments, encodes, and eludes clarity, echoing traditions of concealment found in Islamic art.

Education

2021–22Advanced Master: Master of Research in Art and Design, Sint Lucas, Antwerp (BE)

2019–20Master with greatest distinction — Visual Arts, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp (BE)

2016–19Bachelor with greatest distinction — Visual Arts, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp (BE)

Awards & Grants

2026Honorary Mention, Interactive Art — Ars Electronica

2025POMONA Art Fund Grant — SOFAM and the King Baudouin Foundation

2024Fonds Nieuwe Makers — Stad Antwerpen

2023Grant for Emerging Talent — Flemish Government (Arts & Heritage Department)

Residencies

2026Research residency, DeFabriek, Eindhoven (NL) (upcoming)

2026Development residency, Jaipur Rugs, Jaipur (IN) (upcoming)

2026Development residency, Moussem, Brussels (BE)

2025Research residency, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (NL)

2025ON_OFF_SPACE, De Singel, Antwerp (BE)

2022Development residency, Morpho, Antwerp (BE)

2022Writing residency, Ponton, Z33, Hasselt (BE)

2021Collective residency, Frans Masereel Centrum, Antwerp (BE)

2021Vruchtbare Grond residency, Het Bos, Antwerp (BE)

Curated Festivals

2025Here and Then, Now and There II, Het Bos, Antwerp (BE)

2023Here and Then, Now and There, Het Bos, Antwerp (BE)

Exhibitions (selection)

2026Beyond the Letters, VCUarts Qatar, Doha (QAT) (upcoming)

2026Arab Design Now, Design Doha Biennial, Doha (QAT) (upcoming)

2026Transgressive Memory — eCommemoration, Silent Green, Berlin (DE)

2026Exhibition, DeFabriek, Eindhoven (NL)

2026FeedBack, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp (BE)

2026Spring Show, WePresent, London (UK)

2026Botenstoffe, Halle 14, Leipzig (DE)

2026Loss Marginalia, Qattan Foundation, Ramallah (PAL)

2026Born to Play, Bonnefanten, Maastricht (NL)

2025Open Studios, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (NL)

2025Pomona Art Fund Grantees, Artistic Projects, Art Brussels, Brussels (BE)

2024My Memory Isn’t Mine, Krupa Art Foundation, Wrocław (PL)

2024Flag #7, Cas-co, Leuven (BE)

2024Periphery, Extra City, Antwerp (BE)

2024Open Space, Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (NL)

2024A Chimera Memorial, E.A. Shared Space, Tbilisi (GE)

2024Soft Activism, Lottozero, Prato (IT)

2024Secrets of Making, Textile Museum, Tilburg (NL)

2024Grains of Sand Like Mountains, Kunsthal, Ghent (BE)

2023Carpetland; Critical Tapestries, Extra City, Antwerp (BE)

2023Ultradependent Public School, BAK — Basis voor Actuele Kunst, Utrecht (NL)

2023Tashattot Collective, KIOSK, Ghent (BE)

2023Trading Love, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (NL)

2022Here Instead of Around, Advanced Master of Research in Art and Design, Morpho, Antwerp (BE)

2022(un)common grounds, iMal, Brussels (BE)

2022لا/no*, WARAQ, Lebanon (LB)

2021Het Land van Out of Focus, Het Bos, Antwerp (BE)

Published

2022No and a Thousand Times No, WARAQ, Lebanon (LB)

2022Immersive Gardens of Memory, Ponton magazine, Z33, Hasselt (BE)

Features (selection)

2026Material Codes and Digital Gestures — DAMN Magazine, Cristina Bargna

2026Pixels, Wool, and Faith: The Art of Iraqi Artist Hussein Shikha — The New Arab, Elisa Pierandrei

2025Keeping Southern Iraq’s Historic Textile Traditions Alive — WePresent, Yasmin Alrabiei

2025Refractions Made through Mirrors: On Hussein Shikha’s Carpet Artistry — ICON MENA, Saam Niami

202420 to Watch: Hussein Shikha — Flanders DC, Elien Haentjens

2024Carpetland — Kritische textielkunst eist lokale symboliek terug op — OKV, Dirk Vandenberghe

2023‘Ik wil dat mijn moeder en kleine broer zien hoe rijk onze geschiedenis is, en hoe mooi ons erfgoed’ — MO*, Samira Bendadi

2023Philosophies of the Carpet — Different Class, Alexandra Fraser

2023In gesprek met Hussein Shikha & Sadrie Alves — De Brakke Grond

2023Hussein Shikha Celebrates the Rich History of Iraqi Carpets — It’s Nice That, Olivia Hingley

2021Interview met Hussein Shikha — Het Bos, Anna Jamieson

Contact

Antwerp (BE)
shikha.hussein@gmail.com
@hussein.shikha