Tayeba Begum Lipi is one of Bangladesh’s foremost contemporary artists.

Her practice includes installations, paintings and sculpture, printmaking, and video as a means to comment on the politics of gender and female identity and representation. Born in 1969 in Gaibandha, Bangladesh, the artist was surrounded by the growing families of her twelve older siblings. Her work is inspired by the strong women in her family. She is best known for her sculptural works, which re-create everyday objects associated with women and their lives, including beds, bathtubs, strollers, wheelchairs, dressing tables and women’s undergarments, through unlikely and provocative choices of materials such as safety pins and razor blades.

Through her art, the quintessential accessories of the female lifestyle are transformed into protective armour, posing their possibility of fighting back. Lipi completed a Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka in 1993. In 2002, she co-founded the Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh’s first artist-run alternative arts platform dedicated to organizing exhibitions, encouraging intercultural dialogue and providing residencies for local artists.

She was awarded a Grand Prize at the 11th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2003, Dhaka, and was the commissioner for the Pavilion of Bangladesh at the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2011. She has been a presence on the global art stage since 2012, when she was invited to participate in the critically acclaimed Guggenheim Museum survey of contemporary Southeast Asian art titled “No Country”, and her work is now part of the museum’s permanent collection. Lipi has had solo exhibitions in Dhaka, New Delhi, Istanbul and London, and has also participated in the 14th Jakarta Biennale 2011, the Colombo Art Biennale, 2012, Sri Lanka, and Dhaka Art Summit 2012. Her work continues to receive acclaim for its constant innovation and for the conversation she invokes on the roles and representations of women and marginalized genders, a topic of increasing.