About
The visual artist Mehreen (Lali) Khalid explores the interstices between diaspora, displacement, identity, memory, and migration through her interdisciplinary practice. Working across photography, video, and text, Khalid engages with the nuanced dynamics of belonging, family, loss, and the quiet rituals of home. Her work often occupies the space between the public and private. Informed by personal experience, Khalid creates bodies of work that reflect on love and resilience.
Lali Khalid’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally. She was recently recognized as a Distinguished Fellow for the Penland School of Craft’s 2026 Winter Residency, and Khalid received the 2025–2026 Diane Dammeyer Fellowship in Photographic Arts and Social Issues from the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. Her first monograph, Home. In my heart, beating far away, was published in 2021 by Artvoices Books, and Khalid’s latest book, Letters to Azan, is scheduled to be released in June 2026 by Workshop Arts.
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Khalid was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2007 and she obtained her MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute. Khalid holds a BFA in Printmaking from the National College of Arts in Lahore. She is currently serving as a Visiting Artist in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and resides and works in Chicago, Illinois.
