Pallant House Gallery
Work: No.1367 Mesh
Location: Pallant House, Chichester, UK
Date: 2024
Begum’s monumental installation at Pallant House Gallery features her iconic suspended, colourful mesh clusters, known by many as ‘clouds’. This work brings vibrant colour and organic form into the 18th century interior of this Queen Anne townhouse. The interaction with the grand historic setting with its vast east facing window, illuminates the work as the organic forms spill out over the balustrades, through the central cavity of the staircase, allowing visitors to view it from multiple vantage points.
Desert X Biennial
Work: No.1225 Chainlink
Location: Coachella Valley, California, USA
Date: 2023
No.1225 Chainlink is a geometric, maze like installation that invites visitors to navigate around and travel through. The installation responds to the ubiquity of the chainlink fence which Begum noticed as a pattern seen across the Coachella Valley. The fencing is a material that is meant to protect but also carries associations of violence and division. Begum challenges and contemplates these associations by manipulating form and colour, to create a sense of unity and continuity.
Moody Centre for the Arts
Work: No.1187 & No.1193 Mesh
Location: Rice University, Houston, USA
Date: 2022
No.1187 Mesh and No.1193 Mesh are located in front of the Moody’s entrance and next to the Rice School of Architecture, Anderson Hall. They consist of locally sourced, powder-coated, industrial steel mesh units. The works emerge from combining and stacking modular units into two large assemblies. With vivid colours and unexpected forms, No.1187 Mesh and No. 1193 Mesh activate the adjacent architecture and surroundings. Begum’s work allows for physical interaction, as visitors can walk through and around the towering structure, prompting questions about our place within the built environment.
Pitzhanger Gallery
Work: No.1081 Mesh
Location: Pitzhanger Gallery, London, UK
Date: 2021
No.1081 Mesh was installed as part of Begum’s solo show at the gallery, Dappled Light. It explores the perception of light, colour and form and blurs the boundaries between sculpture, architecture and painting. The work created a dynamic dialogue between Sir John Soane’s design of Pitzhanger, by responding to the Manor’s architecture, sight-lines, and intricate interior decorative schemes.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Work: No.976 Net
Location: London, UK
Date: 2020
No.976 Net is a collaboration with fashion designer Roksanda Ilincic. It stems from a body of work that explores transparency, form and colour. The result is a site specific work made from fishing nets sourced from Istanbul during a residency. They are sprayed in various colours that interact and merge when layered. The stretched netting cuts through the space under the skylight, and historic architecture to create a sense of dynamic movement through space.
Dhaka Art Summit
Work: No.972
Location: DAS, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Date: 2020
This site-specific immersive installation, created for the central staircase of Shilpakala Academy as part of Dhaka Art Summit 2020, consists of thousands of ink fingerprints pressed onto the wall. From a distance, this collection of marks appear as a swarm, creating a sense of movement up and down the staircase; but as one gets closer the impressions left by the human finger become clear. They are markers of human touch - from finger to wall and from one hand to another as the fingerprints overlap with one another and the individual marks create a larger collective mark.
Whitechapel Gallery and Concrete
Work: No.970
Location: Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK & Concrete, Dubai
Date: 2019
The Phoenix Will Rise is a collaboration with architect Maria Tabassum. It was installed twice, once at Whitechapel Gallery, London and a second time at Concrete, Dubai. This collaboration studies the effect of light, colour and form on architecture in a playful way, while simultaneously inviting the viewer to consider space in relation to location and existing elements.
Cristea Roberts Gallery
Work: No.947 Wall Painting
Location: Cristea Roberts, London, UK
Date: 2019
No.947 wall painting was produced in response to the title ‘The Interaction of Colour’. In 1963 Josef Albers published one of the most influential art and design books of the 20th century ‘Interaction of Colour’, as a handbook and teaching aid for his experimental way of observing, studying and teaching colour. Albers’ radical teaching was to have a direct influence on the generation of artists who followed him. Here Begum responds the teachings that have influenced her and her practice.
Bellas Artes Project
Work: No.816 Tiles
Location: Bellas Artes Project, Philippines
Date: 2018
This work is composed of tiles Begum sourced form local workshops. Begum transformed these functional objects by using colour and repetition to accentuate their form. Her practice draws attention to everyday materials, which often go unnoticed. During her residency Begum created seven sculptures from different materials and objects she found in the workshops, including red brick, steel and concrete tiles.
Kettles Yard
Work: No.764 Baskets
Location: Kettles Yard, Cambridge, UK
Date: 2017-18
Commissioned for Actions. The image of the world can be different, an exhibition consisting of thirty-eight artists which marked the opening of the new Kettle’s Yard. Begum contributed a site specific work made from almost 1000 bamboo baskets, hand woven in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was installed inside St Peter’s Church in a wave like structure under the roof and encourages the viewer to walk beneath them as the structure of the church is absorbed by the undulating form of the installation.
Abraaj Group Art Prize
Work: No.695
Location: The Abraaj Group Curators, Dubai
Date: 2016-17
No.695 stems from a series of studies on MDF exploring the interaction of colour. These studies were always intended to become more physical and interactive and No.695 provided this opportunity. Placed outdoors in an open space this work not only interacts with the elements, but also creates a dialogue with the surrounding cityscape. Made from laminated glass sheets, reflections appear and disappear across the surface of the work. Vivid colours and sharp lines are softened through transparency and the mixing of colour. The work changes with the light and potential for varied alignment is endless. This allows each viewer to have their own personal experience of the work.
Hyetal: Parasol Unit
Work: No.694
Location: Parasol Unit, London, UK
Date: 2016
This is a collaborative project with electronic musician Hyetal. It incorporates colour, artificial moving light and sound. Hyetal’s track Permanence is broken up into component sounds which are emitted from four speakers. Experienced individually, the track is fragmented. However, as you stand in front of the artwork, the sound synchronises and comes together. This allows the possibility of both a unified and fragmented experience of the work as dictated by the viewer’s position in the space. The track combined with mirror perspex produces an animated immersion of colour, shadow and sound. As the viewer walks around the space they observe the relief’s infinite visual possibility.
Parasol Unit
Work: No.670
Location: Parasol Unit, London, UK
Date: 2016
No.670 is a large-scale installation created using sections of steel-mesh fencing, arranged in a massive, maze-like structure that invites you to walk through it and physically experience the sense of infinity bound within the geometric repetition of its architectural configurations. Pushing the exploration of three-dimensional drawing and movement by using colour and transparent materials, the scale of this installation contrasts with its fragility and lightness. As the viewer walks past or through the installation, colours and forms appear and disappear creating a unique, immersive experience. Made from powder-coated galvanised mesh, all elements are zip-tied together. The modular nature of this structure implies the infinite potential of scale.
Gallery Mana
Work: No.545 Baskets
Location: Gallery Mana, Istanbul
Date: 2014
This work uses individual modules to create a larger whole - a contemplative undulating structure reminiscent of spaces of worship. Unlike Begum’s previous basket installation in Dhaka, these baskets were woven in Istanbul and dyed black. This takes focus away from the materiality of the baskets and instead accentuates the light itself and its filtration through the sculpture, where it projects transient patterns onto the gallery floor.