Alina Akbar

🩷 SHOW OPENS TOMORROW 🩷 For the girls who said “I’m coming home now” 3 hours ago 💋 Queen of the Night (26-29 March, Haji Cash & Carry, Rochdale, Station Approach, OL11 1HG) Commissioned by @culturecoopuk

Gassed that my Q&A with @ruqaiya.haris is now live on @dazed 🙏🏽 Talking all things working class graft, early music days, walking paths brown girls haven't before, my multidisciplinary practice and how I document the north 🪄 Slide 3: Extract from my film Pardesi Raga Slide 5: Nelson girls @ St George's park Slide 7: One of my earliest film works (2018) with my first video camera Slide 9: @justbanco one of the most important people in the journey Slide 11: Ends (2015) Link in bio to read the full article 💋

Alina Akbar PARDESI RAGA (2023-2024) Installation view at Manchester Museum South Asia Gallery. Followed by a glimpse into various scenes... With one ear to the streets of Manchester and another ear to the subcontinent this film takes you on a tour of my interpretation of the east and west. Reflecting on the generational sounds transmitted via collective experiences and everyday interaction as well as re-imagining what performance looks like through my eyes. Intergenerational perspectives create a temporary sanctuary for the diaspora.   Developed this one in dialogue with my family, inspired by my grandads cassette collection, the drives home from football and my mama's stories of our Punjabi culture that shaped my intentions going into this process that is still snowballing over 2 years after initial release!! I've watched people sing, dance and cry to this film but this work wouldn't have been possible without the 50+ talented people from cast to crew to local business owners to my friends and loved ones! Shout out Mark Thomas and Soup Co guiding me through the entire process, Johnny Jay, Trrikz, Ben Blease, Morgan and Adam on sound support/instrumentals and curators Emily Hannam and Nusrat Ahmed from the gallery. ❤️ Directed by Alina Akbar Produced by @soupco DOP's @percydean @elliotholbrow @edflagtime On set sound recordist/mix @thesoundbean Edit Alina Akbar Grade Mark Thomas Film commissioned by Manchester Museum Photo by Gareth Gardner

Art in Manufacturing, Season 8: Alina Akbar + Automobile Manufacturing Sector⁠ ⁠ Alina Akbar is a Manchester-based visual artist and storyteller working across film, photography, and spatial installation. Rooted in personal and collective experience, her practice explores working-class representation and questions of diversity, amplified through a cinematic eye that captures raw reality intertwined with poetic narratives.⁠ ⁠ Expanding beyond the screen, Akbar creates immersive installations using sound, objects, and site-responsive interventions to explore how stories are held and shared within physical space.⁠ ⁠ For this project, Akbar will work with local car manufacturing and motor vehicle industries, framing behind-the-shutters garages as contemporary artisans operating within the visual language of luxury and aspiration in working-class contexts. Through moving image and sound, the commission will explore autonomy and resistance expressed within the cultural and aesthetic modification of manufactured objects.⁠ ⁠ This Project is a Co-Commission with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and the University of Lancashire.⁠ ⁠ #festivalofmaking #artinmanufacturing #UKSPF @bwdcouncil @aceagrams @lean0161 @unilancashire @elena_k_jackson @jamie_holman_studio

Art in Manufacturing Season 8⁠ ⁠ This season, we welcome three new artists to the Art in Manufacturing programme, alongside the continuation of a two-year residency between Matter at hand and Darwen Terracotta. From artisan makers to some of the UK’s leading manufacturers, artists enter into dialogue with spaces of making and create new work with and alongside skilled workforces and making communities. ⁠ ⁠ These collaborations will come together with a series of new installations, films and participatory experiences at the National Festival of Making on 4-5 July 2026.⁠ ⁠ 2026 Artists and Partners⁠ ⁠ - Abigail Hampsey + Artisan Food Producers⁠ - Alina Akbar + Automobile Manufacturing Sector⁠ - Matter at hand + Darwen Terracotta ⁠ - Penelope Payne + Haworth Art Gallery⁠ ⁠ Read more about this year’s residencies via the link in our bio⁠ 🔗 For updates and behind-the-scenes content, follow @thefestivalofmaking ⁠ ⁠ #festivalofmaking #artinmanufacturing #UKSPF @bwdcouncil @aceagrams @matter_at.hand @darwenterracotta @superslowway @payne.penelope @haworth.art.gallery @abigailhampsey @lean0161 @unilancashire @elena_k_jackson @jamie_holman_studio

Middle of the crisis talkin prices

Queen of the Night (Raat Ki Rani) This project was born from those after Maghrib car conversations. From girls parked under streetlights with kunafa cups and karak chai. From the space between fear and freedom. From the hours we once rushed home...to the hours we took the long way home. Navigating friendships. Heartbreak. Grief. Growing up. Built from real moments, voices and experiences of young Muslim women navigating the streets and life after dark. Thankyou to everyone who supported, contributed and showed up!! 🫶🏽 Commissioned by Culture Co-Op as part of Arts Council England's Creative People and Places programme for Rochdale and further supported by Touchstones Art Gallery CREDITS: Cultural Pioneer Participants: Alishah Ali, Ayesha Ali, Zahra Nadeem & Zahra Parwez Curatorial Producer: Fareda Khan Photography Assistant: Kymara Akinpelumi @kymaraakinpelumi Technician: Robin Broadley @mexico_branch Tech Support: Basil @basilranch 3D modelling: Isa Alsaba @isaalsaba 3D scanning technician: Max Thompson @maximilianth0mps0n Graphic Design: Bimmy @onlyonebimmy Mural Artist - Evan Barlow @artistlad Big Thankyou to Haji Cash & Carry, Culture Co-Op team, Nike, PrintCity MMU, Megainflatables, Stockyard North, Parkinson Signs, Henna Fabrics, Aziz Help the Homeless, Asian Leader, Crescent Radio, Roch Valley Radio, Andy Hirst, all who invigilated, documented and lent a supporting hand @roboticlove @nikelondon @jjcreate808 @jamie_holman_studio @basilranch @milliethrop @badboy_studios @trigga_t88 @sevenstorehq @chaiiwala @renzniro @h8mizu @soupco @ka.dot @percydean + my family 🩶 Photographs by: @danwmurphy & @d.w3rt

26 🎈 I remember stacking for a camera a decade ago...now we break bread and budgets and build teams 🏁 marathon not a race 🧱

In conversation in a cash & carry 😭 Beyond grateful for those who braved the cold and still processing how full that room was all evening 💚 THANK YOU 💚 Hosted by Fareda Khan Commissioned by @culturecoopuk supported by @touchstones_rochdale Photos by @d.w3rt @danwmurphy @pnaquaye 🤍

Alina Akbar’s Queen of the Night: Expressing Asian Girlhood In the same breath, @lean0161 is an artist, wordsmith, activist, and 4th-generation Pakistani daughter. In practice, her portfolio is diaristic, wrangling with parts of her identity and those of the abundant South Asian community she exists within. Whilst her practice is perhaps best defined as personal storytelling, disruption is native territory. Due to the sparsity of Muslim women’s voices in the arts, she’s often the first to speak in the spaces she enters. Reaching 26, Akbar has already premiered her subcontinental filmmaking in museums, showcased a personal image archive in Paris, and amplified desegregated narratives across football and fashion. Read the full feature online now, link in bio. Author: @milliethrop

🫧 3D Printed Arabic Calligraphy Bubble Wands 🫧 Wanted to bring a childhood playful element to the show, so many prototypes with my 3D designer Isa Alsiba who worked so hard on this with me ❤️‍🔥 more to come

Happy Airmax Day live from the exhibition with my girls reclaiming the streets of Rochdale and beyond who make up the audio work central to the show 🫶🏽 The car is a replica of my aunties first one n it's funny cos after I said they didn't dress cool in a interview they reminded me they wore shox, 97s & Tns before me, the undocumented era of Asian girls in small brown towns across the north in the early 2000's that I want to get more into 💙 Thankyou @nikelondon @roboticlove for helping us show them the girls can do it and do it better and have done it for many years📍🤍 Photos by me and @kymaraakinpelumi xxx