aisha tida (عائشة تیدا / « eye-sha tee-dah ») is a Tunisian-Khmer-Chinese interdisciplinary artist and self-taught cook based between Houston and Tunis. As an artist of mixed heritage raised far from both homelands, her work often exudes a sense of longing and need for connection, highlighting varied diasporic experiences between generations and across geographies. Her work centers connection and collectivity, using cuisine, craft, and conversation to explore identity and belonging.

Her artistic practice has sculptural and social emphases and employs a range of techniques and materials, from quilted sculptures and recipe-writing to pattern collecting and multilingual glossary-building. Her work lies at the intersection of art, design, and intentional gathering and is grounded in the themes of heritage and diaspora, art as social practice, and the making and breaking of patterns.

aisha tida received her BFA from Cornell University (2016), served as the artist-in-residence at El Warcha Collaborative Studios in the Medina of Tunis (2019-2020), and trained in the hybrid postgraduate art-in-context program TASAWAR Curatorial Studios (Tunis and online, 2019-2021) before returning to Texas in late 2020. Her artistic and curatorial work has been shared with audiences nationally in Houston, Marfa, Los Angeles, and Upstate New York, and internationally in Bremen and Tunis, with her online workshops engaging participants from across the globe.*

When aisha is not in her studio at BOX 13 ArtSpace, you may find her “studying” in the aisles of her favorite markets or dreaming up recipes for the Diaspora Dumplings Archive with friends, family, and strangers.

*Including Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, France, Spain, Germany, Canada, Mexico, UK, USA, and the Netherlands.