Asma Istwani United Kingdom
Asma is self taught, early career artist working in London. To create her pieces she combines found images, magazine editorials as well as graphic design. Asma employs a variety of traditional (analog) & contemporary (digital) collage styles and techniques in her work.
Asma is most interested in adding to the larger narrative surrounding beauty standards, identity and heritage and aims to make relatable statements in her work about the racial and sexual depiction, representation and experience of "othered" women, with special interest to those who, like herself, make up the SWANA diaspora. Her ultimate goal is to inspire in herself as well as the viewer, a sense of rebellion from the issues that add to individual and collective feelings of disempowerment. She believes collage is the perfect medium for this as it allows her to re-appropriate the very media deemed responsible, in part, for perpetuating and upholding oppressive ideology and systems.
