Rasheed Araeen is a civil engineer, artist, writer, and inventor (received from an international patent in 2003). As an artist, he began his journey in 1953 and continued to pursue art while studying civil engineering at NED Engineering College in Karachi. After doing some important works in Karachi, seminal to his later pursuits, he left for London in 1964 and has lived there since.

In 1965, he pioneered minimalist sculpture-representing perhaps the only Minimalism in Britain. After having been active in various groups supporting liberation struggles, democracy, and human rights, he began to write in 1975 and then started publishing his own journals: Black Phoenix (1978), Third Text (1987), and Third Text Asia (2008). He has also established online versions of Third Text in Cape Town, South Africa, entitled Third Text Africa, and Spanish language Tercer Texto in Lima, Peru, both free to their readers.

He has curated two important exhibitions: ‘The Essential Black’ (1987), ‘The Other Story’ (Hayward Gallery, 1989); and is a recipient of three honorary doctorates (PhDs) from universities of Southampton, the East London, and Wolverhampton. He is now directing a project that will revise and produce the most comprehensive and inclusive history of art in post-war Britain.

He has published an autobiographical book, Making Myself Visible, comprising texts and visual images, Kala Press, 1984, and Art Beyond Art/ Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the 21st Century, ThirdText Publications, London, September 2010. His writing has mainly been published in Third Text, but also in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain in their own languages. He is currently involved in bringing different disciplines together by persuading artists, scientists, engineers, social scientists, philosophers, and so on, to work together in looking at and solving social and ecological problems resulting from climate change.

While still living in London, he also spends some time in Karachi where he has since 2010 re-established his studio and produced new work that was initially shown at his mini-retrospective ‘Homecoming’ (VM Gallery, 2014-15), curated by Amra Ali.
An extensive retrospective of Rasheed Araeen opened in 2018 at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and touring the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, George Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, and MAMCO, Musee d’art moderne et Contemporain, Geneva.