Ibtisam Tasnim Zaman is an African American Lesbian American, conceptual, multidisciplinary, intersectional feminist and self-taught artist. Her art practice consists of creative writing, poetry performance, narrative painting, and community projects. Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Ibtisam moved at age six to England, followed by the UAE. Her mother made the decision shortly after 9/11 to escape the violence that Muslims and that the African diaspora and global majority still face today. From thirteen onwards, she lived between the UAE and India over the proceeding nine years.
Ibtisam’s work has exhibited nationally with New York Health and Hospitals Arts and Medicine Program with Residency Unlimited, funded by the Laurie M Tisch Illumination Fund. She’s exhibited in group and duo exhibitions as well as US based residencies including Governors Island through RU at KODA house. In addition she has taken part in academic panel discussion concerning Blackness, femininity, and healing, and been invited as a guest lecturer to Montclair University. In 2023, Zaman was awarded a NYSCA grant to develop her project ‘The Captive Maternal Realm’, formerly titled ‘Stolen Women’, and showcased her work in 2023 in Brooklyn NY.
Internationally, Ibtisam performed in the UAE, and her work has featured in The Gender Bender Exhibition by The Sandbox Collective and the Goethe Institut, in Bangalore, India. Where she debuted her first narrative portrait, Al Awra The Intimate Parts. She moved back to the states after receiving her Bachelor’s of Arts, with a triple major in Sociology, Economics and History, from Bangalore University in India. She now lives in NYC, where she works as a full time artist,
art educator, writer, and poet. For 2024, she completed a residency at Wave Hill in the Bronx, New York, and a six month fully funded residency in Basel, Switzerland. She is currently a resident in ten-month long residency program in NY until June 2025. Zaman also exhibited during the Kunsttage Basel at Arstübli Basel 8/28/2024, at the Kunsthaus Baselland 9/26/2024, and a solo exhibition at Brownsville Museum of Fine Art. In August 2025, she will be featured in a solo exhibition in Basel, Switzerland.
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Ibtisam Tasnim Zaman 