Shireen Taweel is a Sydney based multidisciplinary artist working on Gadigal Land. Taweel’s practice draws on speculative futurisms and alternative histories as a means to decolonise future cultural, political, and ethical dimensions of Space migration. Taweel focuses on the construction of future transcendental architecture and movement ecology informed by the Arab Sciences contribution of astronomy and celestial navigation instruments to the past and future of migration and pilgrimage. Taweel’s development and research is often site-specific working in collaboration with local communities, architecture and environment experimenting with the materiality of site. Conceptual applications of artisan techniques and speculative narrative drives cross-cultural discourse and dialogues of shared histories and fluid community identities.

Taweel’s works have been widely exhibited in notable institutions throughout Australia, Lebanon and Germany. Recent group shows include In the Inner Bark of Trees at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin (2023), this language that is every stone, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Asad Raza, and Warraba Weatherall at Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2022), Making Worlds, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2022). Taweel had a solo exhibition Holding Patterns at the 4A Centre of Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney in 2020. Her works are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Australia. In 2023, Shireen was selected to participate in the artist-in-residence programme at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France.

sacred architecture and the celestial body, Shireen Taweel