Zalika Azim is an interdisciplinary artist and educator with ancestral roots in South Carolina and Trinidad and Tobago. Her conceptual practice explores the tensions between personal and collective narratives—both known and indecipherable—in order to explore Black migration, movement, and belonging.
Azim received a BFA in Photography & Imaging and a BA in Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University in 2014, and an MFA in Photography from the University of California Los Angeles in 2023. She has presented solo exhibitions with Baxter Street at The Camera Club of New York, and Soho20 Gallery, New York, NY; and participated in group exhibitions at Island Gallery and Gagosian, NY; Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA; The Mistake Room, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; and African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA. Residencies include Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Pratt>FORWARD, NXTHVN, Shandaken Projects, and BRIC. Azim was the recipient of the 2023-24 St. Elmo Teaching Artist Fellowship at The University of Texas at Austin, was recently named the 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Interdisciplinary Work, and a 2024 Deutsche Bank New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. She currently serves as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.