Sarah Al-Sarraj

My practice is centered on world building as a creative and critical process. Predicated on the belief that our world was designed in service of imperial violence, I build new lifeworlds rooted in land, spirit, and ancestry. I currently work with game engines, appropriating military technologies to build uncolonisable realms inspired by Global Majority knowledge systems that engage alternate dimensions and emergent quantum thought. This work is informed by my background in social justice, witnessing the tangible material potential of visionary practice in movements against oppression.

HOW DOES YOUR SUBMITTED WORK RESPOND TO THE CIRCA 20:25 MANIFESTO?
My work ISTHMUS ANCIENT RIVER, follows an Ancestor Simulation on a journey down the river of time. Waking into the distant future and travelling back towards the present, they encounter the remnants of their descendants and the ruins of empire, as well as the ramifications of present day militarism and ecocide.

As our struggles for justice extend beyond a single human lifetime, this work looks towards intergenerational timelines of liberation. Inspired by practices of prefiguration – the notion that we can embody the futures we are actively building – this work claims the future as a Refugia, a shared place to sustain our present movements.

IF AWARDED THE £30,000 CIRCA PRIZE, WHAT 10-MINUTE WORK WOULD YOU CREATE – AND HOW WOULD IT EMBODY THE SPIRIT OF REFUGIA?
In Love as a Concrete Revolutionary Practice, Keri Day writes that ‘love is a movement. A movement toward each another.’ These words echo Audre Lorde’s reclamation of the erotic as a life-affirming force and Houria Bouteldja’s offer of revolutionary love in exchange for solidarity in struggle. I would like to interview organisers and community workers asking about their relationships and views on love to chart a path between the overlooked role of affection, joy and respect in sustaining movements against oppression. To protect identities and expand the conversation beyond anthropocentrism, individuals will be rendered as animals surviving through epochal change.

FOLLOW SARAH AL-SARRAJ ON INSTAGRAM

Funding for the CIRCA PRIZE is generated entirely by the #CIRCAECONOMY, a circular model that reinvests proceeds from affordable art sold on CIRCA.ART into new public art commissions, charitable causes, art education and prizes. Since launching in 2020, the initiative has raised over £1 Million, placing artists and communities at the centre of an economy that continually reinvests in the future of art and culture.

The CIRCA PRIZE 2025 winners will be revealed LIVE in Piccadilly Circus on Monday 13 October, with a special 30-minute award ceremony starting at 20:00 BST. Don’t miss it!