Quebec - Hajra Waheed
Ideas | CBC | Posted: November 7, 2016 3:33 PM | Last Updated: November 7, 2016
The Sobey Art Award is Canada's pre-eminent award for contemporary Canadian art. The annual prize is given to an artist under age 40, who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.
Hajra Waheed's multidisciplinary practice ranges from interactive installations to collage, video, sound and sculpture. Using news accounts, extensive research and personal histories, her work critically examines issues surrounding covert power, mass surveillance, cultural distortion and the traumas of displacement caused by colonialism and mass migration. At 34, Waheed received the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Canadian Mid-Career Visual Artist. She has exhibited nationally and internationally across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, most recently including the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, UK; KW Institute, Germany; Antoni Tapies Foundation, Spain and the MACM, Montreal.
2016 Sobey Art Award Juror Marie-Justine Snider on Hajra Waheed
"Drawing on her own personal history, Hajra Waheed integrates historical and political perspectives, and with the help of archival materials, invents an imaginary story. Like an archeologist or an archivist, she uses fragments of photos and postcards to rebuild a story in another form. Video, installation, drawing and collage are all mediums used to reconstruct a modular story presented as personal archives. Blurring the boundaries between document and fiction and history, Waheed proposes an alternative history. While internationally renowned, Waheed occupies a rather discreet place on the Quebec art scene. Her nomination to the Sobey short list will strengthen her presence in Canada, providing the necessary impetus to "affirm" her work beyond our borders."