Lida Abdul (born Kabul, 1973) is an Afghan video and performance artist whose work centres on exile, war and identity. In 1979 she left Afghanistan to flee the Soviet invasion and lived as a refugee in India, Germany and the United States. Because of this upbringing she regards herself as a nomadic artist.
She studied at California State University, Fullerton, where she earned bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Philosophy, and completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000. Her videos and stage works have a dreamlike, abstract quality, drawing on cinematic devices such as blur and an epic scale.
Her best-known work, White House (2005), was shown at the Venice Biennale and shows the artist painting the rubble of a building on the outskirts of Kabul white. She received the Taiwan Prize at the 2005 Venice Biennale and the Prince Claus Award in 2006. Her work also challenges the image of Afghanistan in Western media, which often reduces the country to war and terrorism. She lives and works between Los Angeles and Kabul.