# Aya Tarek

> Aya Tarek is an Egyptian visual artist working across painting, murals, and installation, between the studio and public space. She examines what individuals sacrifice in order to be absorbed into collective life, and who stands witness. She situates isolated figures within three structures that organise social existence: religious ritual, the crowd, and economic precarity.

Trading as Azarita by Aya Tarek. Alexandria and London.

Exhibitions and commissions: From Muralism to Street Art: MUDEC Invasion, Mudec, Milan (2025); RSH Street Art Festival, Riyadh (2023); Urbain(es), La Condition Publique, Roubaix (2022); the solo exhibition TOKEN, Kodak Passageway, Cairo (2021); the Urban Art Biennale, UNESCO World Heritage Site Völklinger Hütte, Völklingen (2019, 2015); Antigel Festival, Geneva (2018), commissioned to mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; The Invisible Man in a Fluorescent Suit, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa (2017); Afreaka Festival, São Paulo (2016); Djerbahood, Galerie Itinerrance, Djerba (2014); CityLeaks, Cologne (2013); White Wall, Beirut Art Center, Beirut (2012); and Shock Hazard, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2011).

With ETH Zurich's Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science: Waking the Giants, developed with composer Simon Petermann, a three-channel video installation presented at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh.

Editions at Graphicstudio, Tampa (2017). Residencies in Bern (Pro Helvetia, 2022), at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2019), and at the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation, Milan (2010). Published in the Djerbahood monograph (Albin Michel), the Urban Art Biennale catalogue (Wunderhorn), Walls of Freedom, and Revolution Graffiti. She appears in the film Microphone (dir. Ahmed Abdallah, 2010). Laureate of the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture (2024).

Tarek founded Alexandria's first street art collective in 2008.

Prints are hand-signed, numbered, and sold with a Certificate of Authenticity. Editions are fixed and never reprinted. Enquiries: studio@ayatarek.com.

## Pages

- [About](https://www.ayatarek.com/about): Full biography and CV
- [Work](https://www.ayatarek.com/work): Murals, commissions, exhibitions
- [Editions](https://www.ayatarek.com/editions): Prints and originals for sale
- [Studio](https://www.ayatarek.com/studio): Commissions, talks, workshops
- [FAQ](https://www.ayatarek.com/faq)