Cape Breton born artist Sameer Farooq will share ideas about his practice over the past decade including building imaginary museums with the public, the role of meditation/contemplative practice in his work, and his recent foodways research, specifically on the importance of building tandoor ovens and working with flatbread libraries as a lens on migration.
During the summer of 2024 he will be spending two weeks staying at MacKinnon’s Brook in Cape Breton, making work that engages with Sight Point/Cape Mabou, as part of a project organized by Outdoor School (Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell).
About the Artist
Sameer Farooq is a Canadian artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. With a versatile approach that shifts between sculpture, photography, documentary film, and anthropological methods, Farooq foregrounds community-based models of knowledge production and an array of contemplative practices in order to suggest new ways of narrating our cultural histories. The result is often a collaborative work which counterbalances how dominant institutions speak about our lives: a counter-archive, new additions to a museum collection, or a buried history made visible. Together with the public he works to redress the role of exhibition and collection-based practices by employing decolonial, queer, and critical race lenses.
Farooq has held exhibitions at institutions around the world including the Venice Architecture Biennale (2023), Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (2023), Fonderie Darling, Montréal (2022); Koffler Gallery, Toronto (2021); Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2017); Institute of Islamic Culture, Paris (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2016); The British Library, London (2015); Maquis Projects, Izmir (2015); Artellewa, Cairo (2014); and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2011). Reviews dedicated to his work have been published by Art Forum, Canadian Art, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, Hyperallergic, Artnet, The Huffington Post, and C Magazine. Upcoming shows include the Toronto Biennial of Art (2024) and Jaou Tunis (2024).