Dr. Sheyda Khaymaz

Biography

Sheyda Aisha Khaymaz is an artist, curator, poet, and PhD candidate specializing in Art History with a focus on modern contemporary art from North Africa. Her doctoral dissertation, titled 'Indigenous Presentness: Translocal Politics of Amazigh Signs and Symbols', explores the nexus of Amazigh artistic production and sovereignty movements within Indigenous territories known as Tamazgha. She connects recent revival movements to larger discourses on indigeneity and Africanity. 'Indigenous Presentness' theorizes innovative artistic forms that have emerged in the region since the 1960s, particularly sign- and script-based abstraction, a form deeply rooted in ancient practices like tattooing, serving as a mode of decolonizing praxis. Khaymaz is the 2023 recipient of the Rhonda Saad Prize for her paper on Modern Contemporary Arab Art, awarded by the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA). She also received the Mark Tessler Graduate Student Prize Award in 2022 from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS) for her paper titled 'Phantom Images, Residual Violences: Unlooking Untelling Marc Garanger’s Femmes Algériennes 1960'. Her doctoral research is supported by numerous UK organizations, including Tate Modern, Delfina Foundation, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and she has received various distinctions from the University of Texas, including scholarships and awards for excellence in her department.

Research Interests

Awards