Hajra Waheed

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] In 2022, Waheed received The Hnatyshyn Foundation's 2022 Mid-Career Award for Outstanding Achievement as an Artist.^[9]

Waheed's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art,^[10] the British Museum, the Devi Art Foundation, Samdani Art Foundation, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and the National Gallery of Canada.^[3][11]

Exhibitions

• (In) The First Circle, Antoni Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona (2012)^[12]
• Lines of Control, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, (2012)^[13]
• Field Notes and Other Backstories, Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, (2013)^[14]
• Collages: Gesture and Fragments, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, (2014)^[15]
• Lines of Control, The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, (2014)^[16]
• La Biennale de Montréal, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, (2014)^[17]
• Asylum in the Sea, Fonderie Darling, Montréal, 2015^[18]
• Still Against the Sky, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, London, (2015)^[19]
• The Missing One, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, (2016)^[20]
• Sobey Art Award Exhibition, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, (2016)^[21]
• The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), 11th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, (2016)^[22]
• Sea Change - Chapter 1, Character 1: In the Rough, Mosaic Rooms, London (2016)^[3]
• The Cyphers, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, (2016)^[3][23]
• Farewell Photography, Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Ludwigshafen, (2017)^[24]
• Turbulent Landings: NGC Canadian Biennial, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, (2017)^[25]
• Viva Arte Viva, Venice Biennale, Venice, (2017)^[26]
• The Video Installation Project, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, (2017)^[27]
• Hold Everything Dear, The Power Plant, Toronto, (2019)^[28]