Anida Yoeu Ali asks tough questions 鈥 about identity, otherness, discrimination 鈥 in her performance-driven art. With a presence that spans Indonesia to Australia, France to Cambodia and beyond, she has received global acclaim for her installations and exhibits.
In the process, Ali has put the 糖心vlog视频 on the international arts map. 鈥淪he has invigorated attention to our campus as a place of critically engaged, globally minded creative arts,鈥 said Dr. Dan Berger, professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.
In recognition of her contributions to UW Bothell, Ali has received the 2025 Distinguished Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities Award.
An outsized visibility
Ali arrived on campus in 2016. Along with a full teaching load as a senior-artist-in-residence, she has continued an ambitious schedule of exhibits and performances all over the world. In 2024, she installed her largest solo exhibition to date: 鈥Anida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence,鈥 at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, the first Cambodian American to have an exhibit there. The show was on view for six months and featured two of her most prominent performance works, 鈥淭he Buddhist Bug鈥 and 鈥淭he Red Chador.鈥澛
鈥淎s with most of my performance personas,鈥 Ali said, 鈥渢hey are heroines and larger-than-life feminist figures: womxn who are bold, courageous and unapologetic. They are hybrid forms mixing and matching, reinventing and reimagining possibilities.鈥
For both The Buddhist Bug and The Red Chador, Ali uses textiles as storytelling devices, costumes and sculptural elements to extend the surface of her body. The result: an outsized visibility, both for herself and the multiple communities she represents.
Power through mythmaking
As the Buddhist Bug, Ali dons a 328-foot-long, bright orange tubular costume that reveals only her face. The orange is the color worn by Buddhist monks in her native Cambodia, from which her family fled in 1979. Look closer, and you鈥檒l see Muslim elements in the Bug, including the headpiece that evokes a hijab 鈥 sometimes worn by women in the ethnic minority Cambodian Muslim community to which Ali and her family belong.
She has performed the piece in classrooms and dining halls, galleries and streets all over the world. An anomaly, the Buddhist Bug wordlessly interacts with curious onlookers. It prompts an investigation of displacement and belonging, said Ali, and expresses the artist鈥檚 own spiritual struggle between Islam and Buddhism.
鈥淭o the Bug, they think they鈥檙e a perfect fit in whatever situation they鈥檝e come into being,鈥 she said. 鈥淏ut then they notice the people are looking a little strangely at them.鈥
There鈥檚 then a dawning realization of dislocation. 鈥淵ou think you belong, but others start to clue you in that you鈥檙e an 鈥榦ther.鈥欌
Confrontation and humor
The second work in 鈥淎nida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence鈥 was The Red Chador, an ongoing series of silent performances that confront fears of the racialized other. 鈥淚f you encounter The Red Chador,鈥 asks Ali on her website, 鈥渨ill you fear her or walk with her?鈥
Sparkly and sequined, this garment is both a comment on hypervisibility and a protest against misogyny and anti-Muslim racism. At the same time, Ali weaves a spirit of cheekiness and joy into The Red Chador. It sits at the 鈥渋ntersection of fabulousness and feminism,鈥 she said.
Even though she tackles serious political issues in her practice, Ali animates her work with playfulness and over-the-top humor.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the other part of our humanity that I think, in these dire times, we don鈥檛 lean into enough,鈥 she said. 鈥淪ometimes we take ourselves too seriously; we鈥檙e a little afraid to laugh or to be ridiculous.鈥
The in-between
Also crucial to Ali鈥檚 practice is her identity as a transnational artist. With one foot in the United States and another in Southeast Asia, she has embraced the in-between place as a point of power. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a powerful idea for provocation 鈥 a powerful impetus for it.鈥
That philosophy informs her teaching practice, too. In her classes, which span filmmaking, writing, movement and performance, she challenges students to share their work in public.
鈥淎rt can happen anywhere and everywhere,鈥 Ali said. 鈥淒on鈥檛 wait for a museum or gallery or white walls to put your work up.鈥
UW Bothell students also benefit from her international presence. Ali makes a point of taking photos and shooting video of exhibits as she travels. She uses these to introduce students to diverse artists working in other parts of the world 鈥 artists who might not have an established presence in the West.
Threads of the Ummah
In autumn 2024, Ali taught 鈥淐ontemporary Muslim Artists,鈥 which culminated in an interactive installation called 鈥.鈥 All 29 students collaborated to create a timeline celebrating Muslim contributions to the world.
It was an emotional experience for some viewers. 鈥淧eople were in tears because they had never seen Muslim culture represented in a positive public light before,鈥 said student Liam Negron.
Negron and classmate Sam Owens, who each received their bachelor鈥檚 degree in Culture, Literature & the Arts in June 2025, took multiple classes with Ali. What kept them coming back? 鈥淪he has a way of pushing you out of your comfort zone,鈥 said Owens. 鈥淪he鈥檚 so passionate about her art, it inspires you to want to do more.鈥
Negron said he learned to persevere through creative setbacks in Ali鈥檚 classes. 鈥淪he鈥檚 very blunt and direct about how I鈥檓 going to do better,鈥 he said. 鈥淣ot that I can or have to, but the potential is there. I鈥檒l do it. I鈥檒l be successful.鈥
Leaning into the power of Ali鈥檚 belief, students imagine 鈥 and manifest 鈥 new possibilities for themselves and their work.
鈥淎nida鈥檚 tremendous accomplishments are a gift to our campus,鈥 said Berger, 鈥渕ost especially in the students who get to take her classes but also to the broader campus community, which benefits from the ways she brings color, performance and the arts to UW Bothell.鈥
“[Ali] has a way of pushing you out of your comfort zone. She鈥檚 so passionate about her art, it inspires you to want to do more.”
Sam Owens, Culture, Literature & the Arts 鈥25
