Osman Yousefzada
Osman Yousefzada (St. Edmund’s, 1997) is an artist and writer, whose work engages with the representation, rupture and reimagining of the immigrant experience. His work incorporates textiles, print-making, installations, sculpture and performance.
Osman’s practice has been described as "defiant", where the participating bodies throughout his work are presented as part objects that refuse to identify or conform. He has shown at international institutions.
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Recent solo shows include; 'Queer Feet' (2024) at Charleston, 'Embodiments of Memory' (2024) at the Ceramics Biennale, Potteries Museum in Stoke on Trent and ‘More Immigrants Please' a nationwide series of billboards with Artichoke. His large-scale series of solo interventions 'What Is Seen and What Is Not' at London’s V&A in 2022, was commissioned by the British Council in partnership with the V&A. In April 2024 he presented a major solo show in conjunction with the 60th Venice Biennale at the Palazzo Franchetti. In May 2024 he opened the prelude to Bradford City of Culture 2025 with a solo show at Cartwright Hall.
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He is a visiting Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice at the Birmingham School of Art, BCU, a visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and a Research Practitioner at the Royal College of Art. Osman is also the author of The Go-Between: A Memoir of Growing Up Between Different Worlds (2022), a coming-of-age story described by Stephen Fry as ‘one of the greatest childhood memoirs of our time’.
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As a student at Cambridge, Osman started SLAGS at Route 66. Osman comments:
“SLAGS is an acronym for Straight, Lesbian and Gay Students. Sadly the acronym didn’t include Trans and Queer then, the latter I identify with mostly now.”