Hong Kong’s M+ museum has selected Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander‘s hand-painted animated film 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026) for its latest commission for M+ Facade, an enormous LED-embedded media screen measuring approximately several hundred feet across. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, the work will screen from March 23 through June 21.
3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026) continues Sikander’s interpretation of the entangled histories of empire and commerce, linking Imperial Britain, the Indian subcontinent, and Qing China within a broader examination of the transmission of visual language and form across these regions. The animation chronicles the waning sway of the Mughal Empire under Akbar II, its intersection with the Qing dynasty in a period of internal turmoil, and the East India Company’s transition from a mercantile entity to a colonial power, culminating in the First Opium War—sparked by Britain’s opium cultivation in India and its trade with China, and the contested nature of maritime borders.
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“As we mark our fifth year of collaboration with Art Basel and UBS, we are thrilled to showcase a work on the M+ Facade that thoughtfully explores the interplay between empire, power, and trade within a transnational, historical context,” said Suhanya Raffel, director of M+. “Shahzia Sikander’s practice, rooted in Central and South Asian miniature painting, offers a distinctive perspective on past and present globalization through art.”
Sikander is among the most prominent living Pakistani artists, with commissions in painting, sculpture, and film spanning the globe and a steady presence on the international biennial circuit since the 1990s. Born in Lahore and currently based in New York, her practice—including performance, painting, installation—unpacks the enduring legacies of colonialism in Central and South Asia. As in her seminal modern reworking on miniature painting, The Scroll (1989–90), traditional artforms from the region fuse with Western cultural elements to reflect the fraught migration of bodies and beliefs.
“Seeing Shahzia Sikander’s work transform the M+ Facade and engage contemporary art with civic space is incredibly rewarding,” said Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong. “It invites audiences to pause and reflect on urgent global themes in an increasingly interconnected world.”
Sikander was briefly in the news in 2024, when her monumental sculpture at the University of Houston, Witness (2023), was attacked by anti-abortion groups for, in their words, promoting “satanic imagery.” The sculpture was beheaded by vandals, and Sikander declined to repair it.
