Sheyda Aisha Khaymaz is an artist, curator, poet, and PhD candidate in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin, specializing in modern and contemporary art from the north of Africa. Their doctoral dissertation, titled "Indigenous Presentness: Translocal Politics of Amazigh Art and Resistance," focuses on the manifold expressions of indigeneity and Indigenous philosophies in art and explores the nexus between Amazigh artistic expression and sovereignty movements across the Indigenous territories known as Tamazgha. Indigenous Presentness theorizes the innovative artistic forms that emerged in the region after the 1960s, particularly sign- and script-based abstraction, a form deeply rooted in ancient practices like tattooing and rock-engraving, as a mode of decolonizing praxis. The project aims to connect modern-day instances of Tamazight language activism and Indigenous revival movements with a larger discourse on indigeneity and Africanity.

Art/Art History

African Studies

Africa (Sub-Saharan)

Maghreb

Sahara