Tara Asgar is a Bangladeshi transgender artist, activist, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tara navigates the intersections of identity, brown, Immigrant, Transgender, Muslim, and Trauma Survivor – through live and documented performance. Her work explores survival within and beyond dominant and marginalized communities, complicating the politics of visibility and legibility.
Through site-specific interventions, community organizing, written communication, and personal archival video, Tara challenges linear understandings of gender, class, race, and social mobility, examining how these constructs shape narratives of freedom for marginalized bodies. Her practice is deeply invested in resistance, longing, and the poetics of displacement.
Asgar holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of Dhaka and a Master of Fine Arts in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently teaches art and critical race theory at Parsons School of Design at The New School and Pace University in New York City, where her pedagogical approach integrates queer theory, decolonial critique, and performance studies.