Short CV

Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

 1997

Azra Aksamija is a Sarajevo born Austrian artist, architect, and architectural historian. Her broader artistic and academic practice explores representation of Islamic identities in the West, spatial mediation of identity politics, Orientalism, and cultural interaction through architecture. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University Graz, Austria in 2001 with distinction, and received her M.Arch. from Princeton University, USA in 2004. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (History Theory and Criticism Section / Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture). Azra’s academic research focuses on Islamic religious architecture in Europe and the U.S from the 19th century up to the present. She is currently researching her dissertation entitled "Our Mosques Are Us: Rewriting National History of Bosnia-Herzegovina through Religious Architecture" explores construction of Bosnian Muslims’ identities though history of mosques, with the focus on the post-socialist period. Besides her academic research, Azra has been working as a conceptual artist and a curator. From 2004 - 2008 she has been holding the position of a Graduate Affiliate at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT. Her interdisciplinary projects have been published and exhibited in various international venues such as the Generali Foundation Vienna (2002), Biennial de Valencia (2003), Gallery for Contemporary Art Leipzig (2003), Liverpool Biennial (2004), Witte de With Rotterdam (2005), Sculpture Center New York City (2006), Secession Vienna (2007), Manifesta 7 (2008), and most recently at the Stoom, The Hague (2009).