Larissa Sansour

Career

She was born in East Jerusalem and studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art. Sansour received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a MA in fine art from New York University. She studied art history and criticism at the University of Baltimore and was a visiting student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

In her art, Sansour uses video, photography, book form and web pages, as well as installation art. She includes references to various elements from popular culture such as spaghetti westerns, horror films and superheroes. She also makes use of science fiction as a vehicle for providing an alternative perspective on current social issues.

Sansour has had solo exhibitions in New York City, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Istanbul and Paris. She has been included in group exhibitions including the Istanbul Biennial, the Busan Biennale in South Korea and the Liverpool Biennial, as well as exhibitions at the Tate Modern, the Brooklyn Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is included in the collections of the Imperial War Museum in London, the Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Barjeel Art Foundation, the Louis Vuitton Collection and the Nadour Collection.

Her show at the Mosaic Rooms has been cited as one of the world's "must-see" exhibitions in the summer of 2016 in Art Review.

In 2011, the annual Elysée art prize competition was cancelled after Sansour's work Nation Estate was excluded by sponsor Lacoste on the grounds that the work was not compatible with the competitions theme of "joie de vivre". Interpreting Lacoste's decision as political, the Musée de l'Élysée chose to cancel the prize.

Personal life

Larissa lives and works in London having previously been resident in Denmark. Her sister is filmmaker Leila Sansour.

Filmography