Biography

Rasha Kahil (b. 1980) is a visual artist and creative director living and working in London, originally from Beirut, Lebanon. She completed an MA in Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2009. Her projects take the form of photography, text, video and installation. She has exhibited solo and in group shows and art fairs internationally, including in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Zurich and Beirut.
Rasha was formerly co-founder of art direction studio Barbara Creative, and is currently creative director of the Financial Times’ How To Spend It magazine.
Her creative direction work can be found here: rashakahil.studio


Artist Statement

My artwork primarily revolves around the body and its use as a space of projection for personal explorations of the intimate and the confessional. Once placed within the public sphere, it allows for shifting dialogue as it is imbued with various layers of reading granted by the overlap of the private and the public.
Rather than a blank canvas, the body carries with it the weight of its perennial use in popular culture, art history, and everyday social constructs. I am particularly interested in the reconstruction of meaning that arises from the disruption and shift of those preconceived ideas.
Through the sharing of personal storytelling, I hope to engage the viewer in more universal human concerns, as the body becomes a means for investigating displacement, social identity and its manifestation through everyday performance.
I work in different media –photography, text, video and installation– allowing the idea to dictate the form of the art project; to create a body of work that, although diverse in its visual outcomes, forms a coherent whole in its communicative aim.


Contact

rasha@rashakahil.com

Exhibitions

2018
Atropelo, Arebyte Gallery, London
Unseen Photo Festival, Amsterdam

2017
Imago Mundi: Routes Méditerranéennes, Luciano Benetton Collection, Palermo

2016
Anatomy of a Scandal, Art First Projects, London [ Solo Show ]
Now You See Me, TJ Boutling, London
Home Bound, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut [ Solo Show ]

2015
Selected for the 7th Julia Margaret Cameron Award

2014
The White Room book launch and exhibition, Long White CLoud, London

2013
Between 11 and Noon, The Running Horse, Beirut [ Solo Show ]
Nominated for the FOAM Paul Huf Award 2013

2012
Art Taipei 2012, Taiwan
Art:Gwangju, South Korea
Beirut Art Fair, Beirut
Hijacked III, Quad gallery, Derby UK
Full Rabbit, Shoreditch Town Hall, London
Photo Opportunity, Maddox Arts, London

2011
SLICK 2011, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Rasha Kahil / Liane Lang, ArtFirst Projects, London
In Your Home, The Empire Project, Istanbul [ Solo Show ]
Human, The Empire Project, Istanbul
In Your Home, The Running Horse contemporary art space, Beirut [ Solo Show ]
Gems, POV Female London, book launch and exhibition, KK Outlet, London
NoFound to New Documents #1, Victor Wynd Fine Art, London

2010
In the Trenches, The Running Horse, Beirut
SLICK contemporary Art Fair, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
The Corridor to Success, The Composing Rooms, London
The Shameless, Zico House, Beirut [ Solo Show ]
Counting Thoughts, The Running Horse, Beirut
Bastakiya Art Fair, Dubai
Soft Sculpture (or the Ordinary Reinterpreted), The Running Horse, Beirut

2009
The Corridor: PixelPops09, BolteLang Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland
Acoustic Images, British Film Institute (BFI), London
XI and la Gueule du Monde, book launch and exhibition, London
RCA Graduate Show 2009, Royal College of Art, London. Awarded the Carl Garnham Prize for Photographic Media.
The Affluenza Exhibition, St. John's warehouse Clerkenwell, London
Performed Narratives, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
Quiet Please, GSK Contemporary at the Royal Academy of Arts, London


Publications

— Le Liban n’a Pas D’Age, Bernard Chauveau Edition, 2021
— On Photography in Lebanon
, Kaph Books, 2018
— It's Always Been: Contemporary Artists from Lebanon, Imago Mundi. Luciano Benetton Collection, 2018
— The Evolution of the Image : Political Action and the Digital Self, Routledge, 2018
— The White Room, Self-published, 2014
— Hijacked III, Kehrer Verlag, UK, 2012
— In Your Home, Self-published, 2011
— Gems, POV Female London, Oodee Books, 2011
— Nuits Beyrouthines, Tamyras Editions, Lebanon, 2010
— XI and la Gueule du Monde, Self-published, 2009
© All rights reserved. Rasha Kahil, 2021