Saira Barbaric
seattle, washington
Saira Barbaric (they/ze/she/he) is a nonbinary trans, cane-leaning Black queer mixed media creator. Saira started working at a Delaware dinner theater in 2007 and fell in love with the arts in the corniest form. They/he studied costume design at The Theater School at DePaul University, graduating in 2013.
Saira is a student of transformative justice and disability justice who’s shown films, visual art and performance pieces in thirteen cities in the United States, three cities in Canada, in Athens, Greece and in Rome, Italy. Her/zer work builds worlds of nuanced representation and genuine exultation for people who share Saira’s variety of marginalities- Black people, trans people and disabled people. Inspired by the music of William Onyeabor, the assemblage of Betye Saar and the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, Saira is invested in crafting portals to an erotically fluent, bizarre and fruitful, physically integrated Afrofuture.
Saira is a producer/performer at Mouthwater Dance, a burgeoning dance and media company as well as a co-founder of Scumtrust Productions, a porn project producing events, workshops and films. On his/their own, Saira is developing an untitled exhibition of three dimensional assemblage, durational film and paintings that melds mythology, spirit worship, self healing and urban hoodoo. Saira aims to break down the barriers between high and low art while extolling the virtues of crafts, sensuality and Black American storytelling. Currently, Saira is honing her/his writing for feature length scripts, studying dance as a route to elevate their/zer movement quality and engaging with streaming as a type of durational performance.
Over the course of Saira’s residency, Saira will create with light, costumes and recycled objects through stop-motion processes to craft the introductory film for their upcoming altar exhibit.
