Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr. | |
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Born | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto 1 August 1990[1] Damascus, Syria |
Nationality | Pakistani |
Alma mater | San Francisco Art Institute University of Edinburgh |
Occupation | Textile artist |
Known for | Wildlife advocacy, LGBT activism |
Parents |
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Relatives | See Bhutto family |
Website | zulfikaralibhuttoart |
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr. (Urdu: ذوالفقار علی بھٹو, Sindhi: ذُوالفِقّارعلِي ڀُٽو; born 1 August 1990)[2][3] is a Pakistani visual artist, performance artist and curator as well as a human rights activist.[4][5] He is a member of the prominent political Bhutto family, and is the grandson of former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, and his namesake, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Bhutto was born on 1 August 1990 into the Sindhi Bhutto family in Damascus, Syria. He is the son of Murtaza Bhutto, a politician who was assassinated when he was six years old, and Ghinwa Bhutto, who leads the Pakistan Peoples Party of Shaheed Bhutto.[6] He has a half-sister, Fatima Bhutto, from his father's first marriage. He is of Pakistani descent from his father and has Lebanese ancestry from his mother's side.[7][6] Bhutto was named after his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister and President of Pakistan, and is the only male inherent of the Bhutto's family.[6] His grandmother, Nusrat Bhutto, is of Iranian-Kurdish descent. The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto is his paternal aunt, and her husband and former President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, is his uncle-by-marriage, while his father's brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, is his uncle. The politician, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is his first cousin.[citation needed]
Bhutto received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2016 from the San Francisco Art Institute.[8][7][9] He has two undergraduate degrees from the University of Edinburgh.[10]
Bhutto has worked on creative projects such as Mussalmaan Musclemen (2017), The Third Muslim: Queer and Trans Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience (2018), The Alif Series (2019), and Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth (2019).[11][12][4] In 2015, he exhibited an artworks titled ‘The Shrine’, which dealt with the subject of marginalised minorities in Pakistan through photo manipulation, portraiture and conceptual art.[8] Artist and designer Hushidar Mortezaie has worked with Bhutto and designed some of his performance costumes.[2]
In July 2022, he withdrew his participation from the Goethe Institute Film Fest in solidarity with Palestine, as Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd was not invited.[13] Additionally, writer Mohammed Hanif withdrew from the Goethe Institute conference.[13]
Bhutto currently lives in Karachi, Pakistan, and identifies himself as a queer.[7][14]