Hajra Waheed
Calgary, Canadà 1980
Period of residence;
Hajra Waheed was born in Calgary, Canada and raised within the gated headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the largest transnational oil corporation in the world and home base to 25% of the worlds oil export. She later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on full scholarship, was awarded the prestigious Anna Louise Raymond Fellowship upon receiving her BFA (2002) and went on to complete a Masters and pursue a doctorate at McGill University (2007).
Over the years, Hajra has dedicated both her written and visual work to deconstructing corporate gated communities and their expatriate experience while working with a wide range of issues from security and surveillance to the construction of identity and her relationship to and experiences of war. As a result of her own lived experiences between Canada, the United States, India and Saudi Arabia, she grew up acutely aware of different lived cultural experiences of exclusion, privilege and difference. Her visual work explores these issues while seeking to address personal, national and cultural identity formation in relation to political history, popular imagination and the broad impact of American culture and power in a global context.
Hajra Waheed has regularly exhibited her mixed media works in shows across north America, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East including: Remembering Memories Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago (2005); Nannima, 1948 SAVAC, Toronto (2008); How Nations Are Made Bradford Museums, UK (2009); Drawing Form, Green Cardamom, London (2010); (In) The First Circle, Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona (2011); Lines of Control, VM Gallery, Karachi; Green Cardamom, London; The Third Line, Dubai (2009) and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, NY (2012). Her works can be found in a number of permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, the John Jones Collection and the British Museum, London.
She currently lives and works in Montréal, Canada.
