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Abi Tariq

middle man

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, living and working in Paris, France, Abi is an artist and cultural worker whose creative practice extends beyond artistic creation to include writing, organising, curating, facilitating and producing, always with a social and political dimension. He considers himself a middle-man.

Abi’s conceptual practice seeks to critically expose or subtly shift hierarchical structures through the prism of performance art. Inspired by the complex entanglement of language, culture and power, Abi questions behavioral norms by confronting issues of privilege, vulnerability and social expectation.

Abi’s practice also expands into his work at the heart of the arts organisation AFIELD, a grant-giving organisation and international network of cultural changemakers. From conceiving knowledge and skill sharing programs to the curation and production of large-scale events, the impact of Abi’s creative practice is made tangible in the unique ‘social choreography’ that AFIELD deploys.

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NEWS

  • Talk, How to Sustain a Movement: Launch of Alchemy of Commons, by Yin Aiwen at Framer Framed, Amsterdam, September 2025

  • Exhibition, The Wedding Album by Shy Bride Video Services, curated by Abi Tariq, at Ithaque, Paris, July 2025

  • Consultant, The Supporting Act, Impact Grant and Artist Grant 2025

  • Artist advisory and incubation of Pakistani artist Zahra Mansoor 2023 - 2025

  • Event (Program and Production), AFIELD Forum 2025: Transitional Justice by Artists with Kunstenfestival des arts and KANAL Pompidou, Brussels, May 2025

  • Fire Dance, 2021 (13:03), single channel video. Installation: Honi Ryan, Video: Ronen Eldar, Les Moulins, France, in exhibition Offerings, curated by Andrea Morein, at Odalisque, Berlin, March 2025

  • Exhibition, Expectation is the Mother, duoshow with Honi Ryan at RIFT, POUSH, Paris, February 2025

  • (Program and Production): AFIELD Trip: Karachi Biennale 24 and Lahore Biennale 03, November 2024

  • Talk, The rhizomes of cultural workers, with Jenn Ellis and Marine Van Schoonbeek, at ASIA NOW, Monnaie de Paris, October 2024

  • Event (Program and Production), AFIELD Forum 2024: Systems Change by Artists, with KANAL Pompidou and CIVA , Brussels, September 2024

  • Video Production : AFIELD 10 year Video, Fellowship Videos - 2022 – Current

  • Jury, The Supporting Act Impact Grant 2023

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Recent performances include:

  • Being Quietly Whole (2023-), conjuring an intimate shared moment to allow an aged harmonium to tell it’s story

  • Is France Racist (2023), a performative survey of otherness

  • ‘White Paper’ Performance (2023), an examination of the rights of Russian artists under boycott (with the organisation Avant-Garde Lawyers)

  • Domination Cycle (2018-2022), playing with the agency of/over an audience

  • Controlled Feedback (2022), questioning listening culture through noise and the physical power of pure frequencies.

Ongoing works with artist and partner Honi Ryan :

  • New Gravity (2018-), a mind sculpture in the form of a text intervention, which reads like a news headline, allowing us to imagine poetic solutions to the world’s problems.

  • Silent Dinners (2014-), an international performance project using social choreography to experiment with spaces of human exchange around a binding factor; food.

In 2023 Abi also published an essay titled ‘Developing A Queer Lens Through The Work Of Apnavi Makanji’ for their solo ‘Psychopompe’ at TARQ Mumbai.