Behind the Facade | Shahzia Sikander’s ‘3 to 12 Nautical Miles’

‘Across time, the throne has been occupied, overthrown, moved or emptied, but its symbolic force continues.’ In this video, Shahzia Sikander talks about the concept and process of creating her commissioned work, ‘3 to 12 Nautical Miles’, for the M+ Facade. Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, and presented by UBS, ‘3 to 12 Nautical Miles’ is a radiant cinematic tableau, animated from hand-painted images. Navigating the enduring currents of power and trade that have shaped 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. Sikander’s animation signals how authority was constructed, distributed, and contested, and it also examines how authority remains vulnerable, especially in places like the sea, where boundaries are never fully fixed. Through complex histories, Sikander highlights empire as an interconnected global imperial economy built of coercion, extraction, and shifting power. Produced by M+ with the support of Moving Image Studio English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese closed captions are available in the player. M+ is Asia’s global museum of contemporary art. Subscribe to our channel: https://mplus.org/subscribe Sign up to the M+ Newsletter: https://mplus.org/en-newsletter M+ Magazine for more visual culture: https://mplus.org.hk/magazine Instagram:   / mplusmuseum   M+ Shop: https://shop.mplus.org.hk Website: https://mplus.org.hk