Co-commissioned by M+ and Art Basel, and presented by UBS, Shahzia Sikander’s 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (2026) is a radiant cinematic tableau, animated from hand-painted images. Navigating the enduring currents of power and trade that have shaped the global landscape from the nineteenth century to the modern era, the work traces the entangled histories of empire, trade, and maritime power that linked the British East India Company, Mughal India, and Qing China. As the animation unfolds, it charts the decline of Mughal authority under Akbar II, the internal strains of the Qing dynasty, and the East India Company’s rise from commercial venture to territorial power. Within this context, the work interrogates Britain’s opium cultivation in India, its coercive trade with China, and the First Opium War, exposing the mechanisms of imperial extraction and the deep power asymmetries between Britain and China at the time.
Featured on the M+ Facade, Sikander’s animation magnifies the painted gestures, objects, and symbols that signal how authority was constructed, distributed, and contested, from Indian fields and ports to Chinese treaty cities and British naval power. It also examines how authority remains vulnerable, especially in places like the sea, where boundaries are never fully fixed. Grounded in research on China trade art at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and Hong Kong Maritime Museum, the work is rooted in historical detail and visual specificity. Through these complex histories, Sikander highlights empire as an interconnected global imperial economy built of coercion, extraction, and shifting power.
3 to 12 Nautical Miles will be shown on the M+ Facade every night from 23 March 2026 for three months. This marks the fifth consecutive year of collaboration between M+ and Art Basel, presented by UBS, in activating the M+ Facade.
In conjunction with the Facade commission, a selection of the artist’s earlier animations will be presented as free drop-in screenings, all day, every day, from Tuesday 24 March to Sunday 29 March, in M+ Cinema House 2.
The artist will also present a free drop-in Artist Lecture on Thursday 26 March from 17:00–18:00, in M+ Cinema House 1.