Nada Ali (b.1988 Damascus) is a Syrian-Swedish artist who previously lived in Södertälje, currently based in Stockholm. Ali works with icons, powerful images and depictions of power, mourning processes and rituals. Ali’s work is composed of a wide range of materials and media, such as sculpture, performance, installation, and videowork. Her durational work is driven by process and material qualities. Taking inspiration from her personalexperiences and childhood memories, she weaves stories anew into narratives that deal with unsettlement,uncertainty, loss, grief, care, destruction, and reparation. Ali got attention within the art scene with her work ‘The Making and Breaking of An Icon’, which was first performed in her graduation exhibition at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2021. During the summer of 2024, the 350 kg clay sculpture is exposed at Botkyrka Konsthall. The work is a ceramic sculpture that the artist breaks up and then repairs through ritualized acts, only to destroy and reassemble again.

Nada Ali was born in 1988 in Damascus, Syria. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts inDamascus in 2009, specializing in Mural Painting. And her Master’s degree and Post-Master degree (Collective Practices) from the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm in 2021 and 2022. Ali has exhibited in Damascus, San Fransisco, Oslo, Tallinn, Bohuslän, Malmö and Stockholm.

For the municipality of Södertälje, Ali has created two public works, ‘Trace’, a mural (2021) and ‘New Water’ (2022), a sculpture placed in Östertälje, both works in collaboration with Södertälje konsthall.