Andrew Riad

Andrew Riad (b. 2000, Cairo, Egypt) is a Coptic Nubian Egyptian artist and poet. He works with textiles, text, film, photography, found objects and cooking, as well as sound, body and gesture. His projects are research-based and draw on poetry and play.

Riad's work sets out to undo a single, fixed history and to propose rewritten histories that bring silenced narratives to light. He treats language as the experience of sound and ritual, of symbol and gesture. His projects also turn everyday life into myth, to make room for play and imagination.

He graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi in 2022 with a BA in Literature and Creative Writing and Legal Studies. He then enrolled in the MFA in Writing at Pratt Institute. He is an alumnus of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Emerging Artists Fellowship and of SAMT Alternative School. His work has been shown at Alserkal Avenue and Bayt Al Mamzar in Dubai and at NYU Abu Dhabi, including Phenomenological Alphabet (2026). His writing has appeared in Mizna.