Astrit Ismaili

Astrit Ismaili is a performance artist from Kosovo, based in Amsterdam. Their artistic practice features bodies that consist of both imaginary and material realities, using alter egos, body extensions and wearable music instruments to embody different possibilities for becoming. Within their practice, the act of singing is used to explore the role of voice in pop culture and identity politics. Astrit Ismaili’s central interest is how bodies are constructed and interpreted through contemporary society, but also how they are heard, asking what it means to sonify a body politic. Exploring the politics of the body and voice, they aim to disrupt prevailing narratives around representation, imagining new and utopian ways of thinking, how bodies inhabit and occupy space.

Astrit Ismaili graduated with an MA DAS Theater from the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam in 2016. They have received grants including the Mondriaan Fund Project Investment Grant in 2019 and the Young Visual Artists Awards in 2011. They have opened with a performance Manifesta 14, Pristina, and Athens Biennale and have shown work at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; SALTS, Birsfelden; Impulstanz, Vienna, among others. They co-organized the performance project Prishtine Mon Amour and co-curated a number of Lost & Found, a series of events where artists, writers, scientists and musicians can introduce hybrid works that do not comfortably sit into galleries or museums.

astrit.ismaili@fhnw.ch