On the occasion of the Biennial of Contemporary Mosaic, from 18th October 2025 to 18th January 2026 Palazzo Rasponi dalle Teste hosts two parallel solo exhibitions by Shahzia Sikander and Omar Mismar.
The exhibitions aim to explore and bring to the public’s attention the presence and role of mosaic in contemporary and multidisciplinary artistic practices that address crucial issues related to identity, politics and social tensions of the present.
Shahzia Sikander (1969, Pakistan) reinterprets the visual tradition of southern Asia through a contemporary perspective, giving shape to alternative narrations that go through epochs and geographies. Working with a series of different languages – from painting to drawing, from print to digital animation, to mosaic, sculpture and glass – Sikander explores the relationships between the West, the global South and the Islamic world, often through the lens of gender and body politics.
Her research is based on a dictionary of recurring themes that give visibility to historically marginalized subjects, while also turning her gaze inward, reflecting on her own experience as an immigrant and artist of the diaspora living and working in the United States.
For the occasion, a new work is being presented, created in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna and Marco Santi’s Ravenna Mosaicists Group, with the active involvement of students.
