Hajra Waheed is a Montréal-based artist.[1][2] Her multimedia practice includes works on paper, collage, sound, video, sculpture and installation. [3] Waheed uses news accounts, extensive research and personal histories to critically examine multiple issues including: covert power, mass surveillance, cultural distortion and the traumas of displacement caused by colonialism and mass migration.[4]
Waheed was born in 1980 in Canada.[5] She has complex ties and relationships to North America, the Middle East and South Asia. She grew up within the gated compound of Saudi ARAMCO in Dhahran.[1] She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago where she received her BFA in advanced painting and art history, in 2002.[6] She moved to Montréal in 2005 and completed her MA at McGill University in 2007. [3] At 34, Waheed received the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Canadian Mid-Career Visual Artist. [7] She was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2016. [1][8]
Waheed's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art,[9] the British Museum, the Devi Art Foundation, Samdani Art Foundation, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and the National Gallery of Canada.[3][10]
Exhibitions
- (In) The First Circle, Antoni Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona (2012)[11]
- Lines of Control, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, (2012)[12]
- Field Notes and Other Backstories, Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, (2013)[13]
- Collages: Gesture and Fragments, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, (2014)[14]
- Lines of Control, The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, (2014)[15]
- La Biennale de Montréal, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, (2014)[16]
- Asylum in the Sea, Fonderie Darling, Montréal, 2015[17]
- Still Against the Sky, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, London, (2015)[18]
- The Missing One, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, (2016)[19]
- Sobey Art Award Exhibition, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, (2016)[20]
- The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), 11th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, (2016)[21]
- Sea Change - Chapter 1, Character 1: In the Rough, Mosaic Rooms, London (2016)[3]
- The Cyphers, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, (2016)[3][22]
- Farewell Photography, Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Ludwigshafen, (2017)[23]
- Turbulent Landings: NGC Canadian Biennial, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, (2017)[24]
- Viva Arte Viva, Venice Biennale, Venice, (2017)[25]
- The Video Installation Project, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, (2017)[26]
- Hold Everything Dear, The Power Plant, Toronto, (2019)[27]