Jala Wahid
About Forma’s R&D Programme
Each year Forma awards Research & Development grants in the support of new ideas, enabling the time and resources needed for artists to experiment, take risks and learn new skills.
Research & Development Grant
Jala Wahid
2022–23
We are pleased to announce Jala Wahid as the recipients of our 2022/23 Research & Development Grant. Forma is driven by the needs of artists and aims to be nimble and reactive in how we support the sector. We see R&D as a crucial step in supporting talent development and the creation of new, challenging and exciting work.
As part of the process, the artist will receive £2,500 towards the time and resources needed to experiment, take risks and learn new skills.
Jala Wahid will be researching the cultural, social and political history of Kurdistan and Mesopotamia, investigating the UK’s imperial agenda in the middle east in the 20th and 21st century. This will be specifically explored through the history of archaeology and the oil industry, working towards institutional exhibitions at the BALTIC and two exhibitions Germany, in Kunstverein Freiburg and GAK Bremen.
Jala Wahid received her BA from Goldsmiths, London in 2014 and completed her PgDip in Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2019. Recent solo shows include: 2022 AFTERMATH, Niru Ratnam, London (UK); 2021 Cry Me a Waterfall, Two Queens, Leicester (UK); and 2020 Rock Fortress, E. A. Shared Space, Tbilisi (GE). Selected group exhibitions include: 2022 Testament, Goldsmiths CCA, London (UK); 2020 Searching the Sky for Rain, SculptureCenter, New York (US); 2018 Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham; De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill and Arnolfini, Bristol (UK); 2018 Entangled Tales, Rupert, Vilnius (LT); and 2016 And I’ll Promise You, Serpentine Gallery Park Nights, London (UK). Wahid co-edited SALT. Magazine from 2012 - 2019.