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Malina Suliman, Walking in the Sea (close-up photo site-specific installation Jan van Eyck Academie, 2024). Photo Margarida Colaço
Walking in the Sea
The eye-catchers in the presentation is Walking in the Sea: a huge map of the world made of earth and pigments, which Suliman developed in 2023. The work is based on her personal experiences. In it, she explores the complex gap between the way borders are depicted and the way she experiences them as an Afghan-Dutch artist.
Finissage performance
At the end of the exhibition, on Sunday 6 September 2026, a performance will take place in Bonnefanten. Led by the artist, visitors will walk over Walking in the Sea. Afterwards, the artwork will be cleared away. In this performance, Suliman will address the concept of borders as political constructions: temporary, imposed and maintained by control systems.
Malina Suliman
In 2009, Malina Suliman gained her Bachelor in Fine Arts at the art institute of Karachi, Pakistan. She then returned to Afghanistan, where she made paintings, installations and public wall paintings on political and social themes. As Suliman publicly opposed the regime, she was forced to flee the country in 2013 and came to the Netherlands, where she underwent the tough process of naturalisation.
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Meanwhile, she made great strides in her career. In 2016, she gained her Master’s degree at the ArtEZ Dutch Art Institute. After that, she won the prestigious Artist Protection Fund Fellowship in 2017 and collaborated with the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. In 2025, she gained her Master’s degree in choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts.
Suliman has exhibited and given performances in the Netherlands and abroad. She has held presentations at the Institut Français (Kabul), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Wilde Weten (Rotterdam), United Nations (Brussels) and National Gallery (Islamabad), among others. In 2022, she gave a solo exhibition in Museo Casa Rusca (Locarno).
In 2023 and 2024, Malina Suliman did a residency at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Since then, Bonnefanten has been following the artist carefully. This contact resulted in the creation of The Studio #11: Malina Suliman.
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