Martine Syms

Biography

Martine Syms is one of the defining voices of her generation. She is an artist and director whose practice spans cinema, art, and theater. Her work has been exhibited widely at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the ICA London, and MOCA Chicago, and is held in significant public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate, the Guggenheim, LACMA, and the Walker Art Center. Alongside her institutional practice, she has undertaken commissioned projects with Louis Vuitton, LeBron James, H&M, Rihanna, Nike, Prada, and Bad Bunny.

Syms is the writer and director of The African Desperate, which premiered as the closing night film of New Directors/New Films and is distributed internationally by MUBI. She has been a featured speaker at SXSW, Yale University, and Google, and is a 2025 recipient of the Arts & Letters Award. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, and the Future Fields Prize, among others.