Anhar Salem, laureate of the Reiffers Art Initiatives Prize 2025
Anhar Salem (born in 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist with a multi-ethnic background (Yemeni and Indonesian). Self-taught, Salem studied Information Technology at the Arab Open University in Jeddah, then completed a postgraduate degree at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing. Her artistic practice explores, documents, and reveals private spaces to the public realm through themes of everyday life, the body, and social media.
Anhar Salem is participating in the fourth edition of the Reiffers Art Prize, 1000 milliards d’images.
Exhibition view of "1000 milliards d'images"
Anhar Salem, 2025
Exhibition view of "1000 milliards d'images"
Anhar Salem, 2025
…and the skies are a conquered paradise. والسماوات جنة محتلة
Anhar Salem, 2025Biography
Working primarily with video, Salem draws an emphasis on new forms of communication that critique video as a medium. She often improvises with her iPhone camera, working collaboratively with her subjects and characters as a means to foreground processes around the marginalization of people and their images.
Anhar Salem received the ADAGP Digital Art – Video Art Revelation Prize (France) in 2021, the Around Video Art Fair / Renato and Catherine Casciani Prize (France) in 2021, the Radar Award from the Curtocircuíto International Film Festival (Spain) in 2022, and the Analix Forever / Galerie Analix Prize (France) in 2021. Her first solo exhibition, "Mashallah. Why Did You Wander Out?", took place at the Cité internationale des arts in 2023.
She has participated in several group exhibitions, including "THE FUTURE IS UNMANNED" at La Head (Switzerland) in 2024, "I took a screenshot of the whole world" at POUSH (France) in 2023, and "PICKLE BAR PRESENTS" at West Den Haag (Netherlands) in 2023.