Born 1975, Peshawar, Pakistan
Saks Afridi is a multi-disciplinary artist living in New York City. Saks’s art practice is two-fold: Collaborative and Personal. His personal work investigates the predicaments and perplexities of the life of an ‘Insider Outsider’. This is the practice of achieving a sense of belonging while being out of place, finding happiness in a state of temporary permanence, and re-contextualizing existing historical and cultural narratives with the contemporary.
His latest project SpaceMosque, exists in a new genre he terms as ‘Sci-fi Sufism’. Here he explores the idea of ‘Spiritual Machines’ that fuse mysticism and technology, bringing humanity closer to understanding itself. He draws inspiration from Afrofuturism, South Asian folklore, Sufi Poetry, Islamic mythology, architecture and calligraphy.
Saks likes to let the concept lead the medium he works in, often working with architects, artisans, modelers and fabricators to bring the work to life. He comes to art with a background in advertising, as a Creative Director on brands such as Mercedes-Benz, MTV and White Castle. He studied advertising at the Academy of Art and later sculpture at the Art Students League of New York. He speaks English, Urdu, Pashto and conversational Arabic.
He is the proud recipient of 2 Gold Cannes Lion Awards, 3 D&AD Pencils, 2 OneShow pencils and a United Nations Award for Peace & Understanding. His work has also been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNN and The Colbert Report.
“If all your prayers were answered, would it change the world, or just yours?” - Unknown
In the near past, a global phenomenon occurred which has since been erased from our memories. Due to the arrival of a strange vessel from the future, a Spiritual Machine from outer space, each human being on the planet got one prayer answered every 24 hours. We invite you to decipher this forgotten era with us.
Featured in New Asian Futurisms
