Hong Kong’s M+ museum has announced Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander’s 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026) as its latest commission for the M+ Facade. 

Born in Lahore and currently based in New York, Sikander creates paintings, sculptures, installations, performances, and video works that probe questions of gender and race within the fraught legacies of colonialism in the Global South. Often drawing on Central and South Asian miniature painting techniques, her practice reclaims and foregrounds marginalized narratives through new modes of visual storytelling. She is credited with starting the neo-miniature art movement of the late 1980s and early ‘90s through her influential thesis The Scroll (1989–90).

Sikander’s facade commission, 3 to 12 Nautical Miles, is an animated film featuring handpainted imagery that delves into the complex economic relations between the British East India Company, Mughal India, and Qing China. Based on research about China trade art at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and Hong Kong Maritime Museum, the project charts imperialist global trade networks across sprawling geographies, exploring the maritime world as a frontier of capitalist expansion. “This time-based cinematic work echoes the idea of the sea through ink, movement, and particle systems, alluding to water and ocean as conduits of imperial power, commercial exchange, and political control,” explained Sikander in a press release.

Suhanya Raffel, museum director of M+, noted: “Presenting this commission . . . reaffirms our commitment to innovative moving-image practices and highlighting the diverse trajectories of Asian artists. This project explores the nuanced, multifaceted colonial history of Asia, underscoring the museum’s role in tracing cultural development in the region, fostering dialogue with audiences locally and globally.”

The film will be screened nightly on the M+ Facade from March 23 to June 21.

Aisha Traub Chan is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.