Farheen Haq (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working on unceded Lekwungen territory (Victoria, BC). She was born and raised on Haudenosanee territory (Niagara region, Ontario) amongst a tight-knit Muslim community. Her family roots are from Bihar, India and Karachi, Pakistan. Farheen works with video, textile, installation and performance to explore personal, familial, cultural and political reconciliations. Farheen’s current work is focused on the teachings of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and how it can be applied to settler-Indigenous relationships on Turtle Island through culture making and ceremony.
She has exhibited her work in galleries and festivals throughout Canada and internationally including New York, Paris, Buenos Aires, Lahore, Hungary, and Romania. Recent exhibitions include I am my mother’s daughter at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (2023) and The Reach Gallery, Abbotsford (2024), Sentirse en Casa at Casa Cultura Gallery, Medellin Colombia (2018), Being Home at the Comox Valley Art Gallery (2015), Fashionality at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (2012), Collected Resonance at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (2011), The Emperor’s New Clothes at the Talwar Gallery, New York (2009), and Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, Miami (2008). Farheen received her BA in International Development (1998) from the University of Toronto, her BEd (2000) from the University of Ottawa and her MFA in Visual Arts (2005) from York University. In 2014, Farheen was nominated for Canada’s pre-eminent Sobey Art Award.