thantreyarts

Yasmeen Fathima Thantrey (she/her/they) is an artist living and working in London. Currently studying MA Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art, her practice explores South Asian diaspora, identity, and barriers she has encountered growing up as a working class, fat, queer, disabled, South Asian in the UK. Feminist issues such as body hair and diet culture are also challenged through the eyes of a brown girl. Her work is interdisciplinary, often using mediums that feel appropriate to the topics she is exploring. This ranges from photography, print, performance and film, to installations and soft sculptures.

Thantrey’s work has a strong collaborative element, as the issues she takes on are socio-political, and therefore, community is extremely significant for the work she produces. This makes her work fall somewhere within the art activism and performance intersection, as audience response and gaze is crucial to the narrative. She aims to play and dismantle power structures through humorous loaded work, that purposefully interrupts a white cube and institutional environment.

Exploring South Asian diaspora has given her work a purpose in this era, as systemic racism and disproportional representation are being addressed globally. Her work thrives within social media spaces also, to generate discourse and open safe spaces for discussion through her community work. With this increasing presence and collaboration, her motive also tackles the Eurocentric standards of beauty that have been forcefully ingrained within society and culture.