In Person: Shaima Al-Tamimi’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable
A lattice-like curtain made of lace bifurcates the room, creating an intimate space within which to watch Shaima Al-Tamimi’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable (2021). A Yemeni-East African photographer and filmmaker based in Qatar, Al-Tamimi’s short film is a reflection on the multiple displacements and migrations within her family, and was on view at Displacement, curated by Rahaab Allana, as part of the tenth edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival held from 12–21 December 2025 in Goa. Addressed to Al-Tamimi's paternal grandfather whom she never had a chance to meet, the film draws on archival photographs, animation and constructed images to reflect on what it means to belong to a place. In this edited conversation, the artist speaks about what drove her to make this film, responding to the fraught politics of citizenship and her approach to working with personal images.
Shaima Al-Tamimi’s photography, film and archival research investigate how migration and statelessness shape personal and public identities. In 2022, she was commissioned by Qatar Museums to document the Flour Mill Factory before it was demolished to make way for the new Art Mill 2030 museum. Don’t Get Too Comfortable has been widely exhibited internationally, including notably the Venice International Film Festival. Her practice has been supported by the Prince Claus Fund, Magnum Foundation, American Film Showcase and the Doha Film Institute, positioning her as a commanding voice in the contemporary Arab art scene.
(Featured Image: Still from Don’t Get Too Comfortable [2021] by Shaima Al-Tamimi. Image courtesy of the artist.)
Recorded on 16 December 2025.
To learn more about works at the tenth edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival, engage with Mallika Visvanathan’s curated album from Kunga Tashi Lepcha’s Children of the Snowy Peak (2019–ongoing) which was on view as part of Murmurations curated by Ravi Agarwal.
To learn more about the previous editions of the Serendipity Arts Festival, watch episodes of In Person with Varun Kodanama as he discusses his film I Am Lawrence Wilson (2022), with Ravi Agarwal and David Verghese as they walkthrough their exhibition Carbon (2024) and with Dayananda Nagaraju and Niranjan NB as they speak about their project The Everlasting River (2024).
Also read Radhika Saraf’s reflections on Nicole Gormley and Nancy Kwon’s Daughter of the Sea: Sisterhood in the Sea (2023) and her conversation with Kapil Das and Grant Davis from the Aldona Video Club (AVC), Anoushka Antonnette Mathews’ review of Niharika Popli’s If I Could Tell You (2024) and Aparna Chivukula’s essay on Ghosts in Machines (2024) curated by Damian Christinger.
