Today we’d like to introduce you to Rida Yawar.
Hi Rida, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started out as an architect in Pakistan. Art was always something that was on my mind, but I never took it seriously enough to pursue it as a career. Coming from a middle-class family in Pakistan, it could only really be a hobby at most.
While practicing architecture, I started feeling more and more restricted in terms of creative freedom and expression. The longer I worked, the more I found myself disagreeing with how architecture was being practiced — without much thought for the future or for how important of a role architecture plays when you consider how a society functions. The frustration eventually built up to a point where my love for designing buildings and spaces became less than my resentment to the practice of it on the whole. It wasn’t the creative process or the profession that bothered me, but rather the commercial pressures and priorities that often overshadowed meaningful design and community impact. I couldn’t do it anymore and needed to step away.
I started making art just to learn a few skills and to take a break, but it turned into something I resonated with far more than architecture. So I told myself: if I’m going to give it my all and try to be an artist, then that’s what I’ll do. And if it doesn’t work out, it’ll simply remain an unfulfilled dream — but at least I would have tried.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Changing your career path is never easy. You have to start from the beginning when everyone else around you has already moved much further ahead. When I decided to pursue my MFA, I knew I was competing with people who had formal training in art. In Pakistan, unless you attend an art institute, you’re very unlikely to be exposed to the art world or to art history in any real depth. I had to build a portfolio that could compete with that, and I had to do it in a much shorter span of time.
I also knew I wanted to do my master’s in the US because of its role in contemporary art. But it wasn’t just about getting into an institution — it was also about how to afford it, if at all. A master’s abroad without funding was completely out of the question for me financially. The only way to make it possible was to secure significant support. That’s when I decided to apply for the Fulbright scholarship — a longer and much more uncertain route, but the only one that could make this a possibility.
Being from a Shia family — a marginalized minority sect in Pakistan — shaped a lot of my thinking and hence early work, which often critiqued the sociopolitical systems back home. But after moving to the US, that focus began to shift. I became hyper-aware of the weight of my ethnic identity in a Western context — a label that carried far more baggage than I had ever fully realized
I started to question: Which responsibility becomes more urgent? Does criticizing the targeted violence in Pakistan allow Western narratives to paint my entire people as inherently backward? Or does speaking out against Western Islamophobia overshadow the deep-rooted discrimination and sectarian violence within Pakistan? When both narratives demand attention, which one do you choose to silence?
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I can now finally say without hesitation — something I couldn’t for a long time — that I’m an artist. I’m a sculptor who’s still figuring out how to express myself through my work.
Recently, I’ve become known for working with Himalayan pink salt. I chose the material for its contradictory nature, both conceptually and materially. Himalayan pink salt is often marketed in the West as a symbol of healing, cleansing, and wellness. Its name evokes the vast Himalayan Mountain range spanning six countries — obscuring the salt’s true origin: Pakistan, a country more often associated with conflict and extremism. The salt embodies a paradox between what it represents and where it comes from. I was drawn to it not just for that contradiction, but because it mirrored the in-betweenness I often feel between two selves, two homes, and sometimes two opposing worldviews.
In my work, I try to capture that feeling — the suspension, the negotiations, the small sacrifices that come with existing between places. Formally, I keep my work minimal because I want the material and the form to speak for themselves. I’m not thinking about one specific thing when I’m conceptualizing, and I don’t want the work to be tied down to a single reading either. It is as much political as it is personal. It is as much about being seen as it is about being erased. It is as much about taking up space, asserting one’s presence, as it is about knowing when to retract, to pull back and be silent.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
So much of my work — and my life — is about sitting with uncertainty. I don’t have everything figured out, and I don’t think I ever want to. There’s something valuable in staying open to change and resisting the urge to solidify things too quickly. I’m drawn to spaces that are unresolved, to ideas that haven’t settled yet. There’s a quiet resistance in not being fully legible. It’s a refusal to be made transparent on demand, a way of holding back from being easily understood or categorized. In opacity, there’s space for complexity and for nuance My work isn’t about offering answers; it’s about holding space for contradictions, for tensions, for the parts of ourselves and the world that don’t neatly fit into categories.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ridayawar.com
- Instagram: @rida.yawar
