Shahzia Sikander: 3 to 12 Nautical Miles

Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, and presented by UBS, Shahzia Sikander’s 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026) is a radiant cinematic tableau animated from hand-painted images. Navigating the enduring currents of power and trade shaping the global landscape from the nineteenth century to the modern era, the work traces the entangled histories of empire, trade, and maritime power that linked the British East India Company, Mughal India, and Qing China. As the animation unfolds, it charts the decline of Mughal authority under Akbar II, the internal strains on the Qing dynasty, and the East India Company’s rise from commercial venture to territorial power. Within this context, the work interrogates Britain’s opium cultivation in India, its coercive trade with China, and the First Opium War, exposing the mechanisms of imperial extraction and the deep power asymmetries between Britain and China at the time.

Featured on the M+ Facade, Sikander’s animation magnifies the painted gestures, objects, and symbols that signal how authority was constructed, distributed, and contested, from Indian fields and ports to Chinese treaty cities and British naval power. It also examines how authority remains vulnerable, especially in places like the sea, where boundaries are never fully fixed. Grounded in research on China trade art at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and Hong Kong Maritime Museum, the work is rooted in historical detail and visual specificity. Through these complex histories, Sikander highlights empire as an interconnected global imperial economy built of coercion, extraction, and shifting power.

3 to 12 Nautical Miles will be shown on the M+ Facade every night from March 23, 2026 for three months. This marks the fifth consecutive year of collaboration between M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, in activating the M+ Facade.

In conjunction with the Facade commission, a selection of the artist’s earlier animations will be presented as free drop-in screenings, all day, every day, from Tuesday March 24 to Sunday March 29, in M+ Cinema House 2.

The artist will also present a free drop-in Artist Lecture on Thursday March 26 from 5–6pm, in M+ Cinema House 1.

About Shahzia Sikander
Shahzia Sikander (American, born Pakistan, 1969) is widely celebrated for her pioneering work in subverting Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions, bringing them into dialogue with contemporary international art practices and launching the form known today as ‘neo-miniature’. Engaging ideas of language, trade, empire, and migration through fluid and surreal permutations, Sikander’s work resonates with a postmodern world and a contemporary feminist perspective. Her iconoclastic multimedia practice expands painting, video animation, mosaic, and sculpture to explore gender, sexuality, racial narratives, and colonial histories. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Award and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s Pollock Prize for Creativity, among others.

About M+ 
M+ is Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture. Located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK), it is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The landmark M+ building on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbourfront was designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup. It spans a total floor area of 65,000 square metres, featuring thirty-three galleries alongside a Learning Hub, Moving Image Centre, Research Centre, and Roof Garden, among other event and programming spaces. The M+ Facade is one of the largest LED screens in the world, showcasing commissioned artworks on the Hong Kong skyline every evening. The museum stewards a multidisciplinary permanent collection that includes objects from regions across Asia and beyond. A highlight is the M+ Sigg Collection, one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Chinese contemporary art. Today, M+ is a nexus for researching and presenting contemporary visual culture, inspiring thought and curiosity.