Farheen HaQ was born in Welland, Ontario, Canada in 1977. She holds a BA in International Development from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Education from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Fine Arts from York University.

HaQ’s work explores cultural inscriptions of the body, gender, ritual and gesture. She was raised a devout Muslim within a tight-knit Pakistani community in the Niagara region. Her video and performance work is a medium through which she understands her body and the various cultural rituals that inhabit it. HaQ observes formal and aesthetic properties of her cultural practices, which she then recreates in her work. Through this creative process, she choreographs her own hybrid rituals and imagines new spaces of congregation.

Solo exhibitions of her work have taken place at Struts Gallery (Sackville), Ministry of Casual Living (Victoria), Niagara Artists Company (St.Catharines), Gallery TPW (Toronto), Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax), Kelowna Art Gallery, Trinity Square Gallery (Toronto), Lennox Contemporary (Toronto) and the LAB at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Notable group exhibitions include Talwar Gallery (New York), Austrian Cultural Forum (New York), Queens Museum of Art (New York), Pulse Contemporary Art Fair (Miami), National Gallery of Art (Pakistan), Blackwood Gallery (Mississauga), Textile Museum of Canada (Toronto), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), artwallah (Los Angeles). Her videos have also been screened at the Regent Park Film Festival (Toronto), Achtung Baby - a curated touring screening of Canadian video art (Hungary, Slovakia, Romania), Pacific Cinematheque, Edges Festival (Victoria), and Pleasuredome’s New Toronto Works.

HaQ has taught at the Vancouver Island School of Art (Victoria) and is a member of MediaNet (Victoria). In 2006 she was awarded Artist of the Year by SAVAC (South Asian Visual Artists Collective). She has received grants from Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. HaQ currently resides in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and two children.

Artist Code: 651