Sofia Karim

Karim was born in Liverpool in the 1970s to Bangladeshi parents. She is the middle of three sisters. The family moved to Libya for her parents' work when she was an infant, returning to the UK when she was seven.{{Cite web |date=2023-08-14 |title=The interview: Sofia Karim {{!}} New Internationalist |url=https://newint.org/features/2023/09/25/sofia-karim |access-date=2024-03-09 |website=New Internationalist |language=en}}

She has worked as an architect for over 20 years, including at Foster and Partners in London and at Peter Eisenman in New York City.

Karim's Turbine Bagh protest art project began in solidarity with the Muslim women of the 2019–2020 Shaheen Bagh protest in Delhi, against the Indian government's Citizenship Amendment Act. Karim invites artists, writers and thinkers to send designs for samosa packets, which she prints and assembles. Typically these bags, which are used to wrap the popular South Asian snack, are made from old newspaper—a format which Turbine Bagh mimicks. The project has evolved into a platform that campaigns for the release of political prisoners in South Asia and raises awareness of human rights injustices across the world.{{Cite web |title=Collaboration > Control|url=https://formatfestival.com/event/collaboration-control/ |access-date=2024-03-12 |website=Format International Photography Festival |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Turbine Bagh, Inquilab! – Kunsthaus Göttingen EN |url=https://kunsthaus-goettingen.de/english/blog/2022/06/05/litas-house/ |access-date=2024-03-15 |language=en-GB|website=Kunsthaus Göttingen}}

Her uncle is the photojournalist, social activist and educator Shahidul Alam.{{Cite news |last=Thorpe |first=Vanessa |date=2018-09-02 |title=British artists join fight for release of Bangladeshi photojournalist |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/02/british-art-world-fight-release-shahidul-alam-bangladeshi-photojournalist |access-date=2024-03-09 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}

• Shahidul Alam: Truth to Power, a retrospective of work by Shahidul Alam, Rubin Museum of Art, New York City, November 2019 – January 2021. Included a 3D model of Dhaka Central Jail, Keraniganj by Karim.{{Cite news |last=Lubow |first=Arthur |date=2019-12-23 |title=Using His Camera as a Witness and Weapon |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/arts/design/shahidul-alam-rubin-museum.html |access-date=2024-03-11 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

• Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, September – November 2021. Work nominated for the Jameel Prize, included Karim's Turbine Bagh.{{Cite web |title=Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics - Exhibition · V&A |url=https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/jameel-prize-poetry-to-politics |access-date=2024-03-10 |website=Victoria and Albert Museum |language=en}}
• Turbine Bagh was part of Documenta fifteen, Kunsthaus Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany, June–September 2022
• Divided Selves: Legacies, Memories, Belonging, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, 2023{{Cite web |title=Divided Selves: Legacies, Memories, Belonging|url=https://www.theherbert.org/whats-on/1711/divided-selves-legacies-memories-belonging |access-date=2024-03-11 |website=Herbert Art Gallery and Museum}}
• Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest, South London Gallery, London, 8 March – 9 June 2024{{Cite web |title=Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest |url=https://www.southlondongallery.org/exhibitions/acts-of-resistance/ |access-date=2024-03-10 |website=South London Gallery |language=en-GB}}

Karim's work is held in the following permanent collection:

• Victoria and Albert Museum, London: 20 samosa packets from Turbine Bagh (as of 9 March 2024)

{{Reflist}}

• {{Official website|www.sofiakarim.co.uk}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karim, Sofia}}

Category:English people of Bangladeshi descent

Category:21st-century English women

Category:Artists from Liverpool

Category:Living people

Category:1976 births