Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 3-4 pm
SOU Meese Auditorium – Art Building (next to the SMA)
555 Indiana Street | Ashland OR 97520
FREE, and open to the public | FREE Parking

Join us on Tuesday, April 21 at 3 pm for a Creative Industries Discussion with our 2026 SOU VAST (Visiting Artist & Scholar in Teaching) resident Omer Wasim.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Omer Wasim (b. 1988, Karachi, Pakistan) is an intermedial artist whose work bears witness to the relentless erasure, violence, and destruction of our times by engaging with disappeared and emergent ecologies, the spectres of postmemory, and the minutiae of daily life. Weaving in and out of the personal, as caught in the crosshairs of social and political upheavals, he gathers and transforms ephemeral, sonic, and more-than-human traces into works that resist state amnesia, historical erasure, and un-belonging in territories across South Asia. Wasim’s solo and collaborative projects have been shown at the National Museum of Qatar, the Yokohama Triennale, Sonsbeek 20→24, and the Dhaka Art Summit; at Jameel Arts Centre, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, and Centre A; and in artist-led and regional platforms, including Colomboscope, Khoj, the Cairo Video Festival, and the Karachi Biennale, among others. Wasim graduated from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in Sculpture in 2025.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES DISCUSSION SERIES

The Creative Industries Discussion Series is a forum centered on distinguished artist lectures. Designed to bridge the gap between studio practice and professional reality, these sessions offer a rare, first-person look at the voices defining today’s visual landscape.

The series prioritizes the perspective of working artists, who pull back the curtain on:

• The Creative Process: How concepts evolve from initial ideas into final, gallery-ready works.
• Materiality: The specific techniques, mediums, and experimental methods used by modern creators.
• Career Navigation: Realistic insights into maintaining a professional practice within the global art market.
• Dialogue and Connection: Each event is more than a presentation; it is an invitation to engage. Every artist lecture concludes with a moderated Q&A, fostering direct dialogue between the speakers and the community.

These sessions are free and open to the public, serving as a vital link between the Southern Oregon University campus and the professional creative industry.