Said Adrus

London-based artist Said Adrus has been active since the 1980s, mainly in the UK and Switzerland. He has exhibited and worked in Italy, Turkey and Uganda. Adrus currently divides his time between London, where his studio is located, and Burgdorf, near Bern, in Switzerland. He expresses himself through painting, drawing, printmaking and video, blurring the boundaries between techniques and media. He has taken part in numerous exhibitions, performances, site-specific projects and artistic collaborations combining installations, films and music.

 

Having himself been confronted with social and historical tensions since childhood, Adrus' practice revolves around issues of exile and the relationship with alterity, while retaining a spiritual dimension that he expresses particularly through his calligraphy and some of his videos.

 

For some years now, Adrus has been exploring certain themes linked to the history of the British Empire's populations from the Indian subcontinent. Projects such as "Lost Pavilion" and "Pavilion Recaptured" question the nature of the forgetfulness and condescension that British society reserved for soldiers from its colonies during the First World War. More recently, the short film "The Riddle of Bakuli" evokes the return of artist Said Adrus to his native Kampala.

 

Bitterly regretting successive essentialisations, it is in the spirit of Edward Said that Adrus is conducting his most recent work, paying homage to the parallelisms of lives situated in this in-between place at the junction of estranged worlds.