Khadija Baker is a Syrian Kurdish and Canadian artist and performer who lives in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

. Her multimedia work reflects her own experiences of forced displacement and trauma and has been shown globally including at the Atassi Foundation at Alserkal, Dubai, the 3rd Istanbul International Triennial, Istanbul, Turkey; the 6th DocuAsia Forum, Vancouver, Canada; the 12th International Exile Film Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden; the 27th Instant Video festival, Marseille, France; the inaugural Syria Contemporary Art Fair, Beirut, Lebanon; the 17th CONTACT Photo Festival, Toronto, Canada; the 18th

Biennale of Sydney The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and ...

, Australia; the 6th OFTTA festival, Montréal, Canada; the 10th International Diaspora Film Festival, Toronto, Canada; Alwan gallery New York, USA; and the official exhibition marking Damascus’ role as the 2008 UNESCO Arab Capital of Culture, Damascus, Syria – as well as well as group shows in Vienna, Austria; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany; Delhi, India; Beirut, Lebanon; London, UK; New York and San Francisco, USA. She also showed locally at

A Space Gallery A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

, Gallery 101, M.A.I (Montreal, arts interculturels)
Karash-Masson Gallery
Stewart Hall Art Gallery.

Education

Born in Amûdê,

Rojava The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing Regions of North and East Syria, sub-regions in the areas of Afrin Region ...

, Baker moved to Montreal in 2001 and has MFA Open Media degree in fine arts from

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

Career

Her work combines sculpture, sound, textiles, and video and is inspired by her lived experience of trauma and forced displacement. Baker uses art to critique the treatment of

Kurds in Syria The Kurdish population of Syria ( ar, كرد سورية) is the country's largest ethnic minority, usually estimated at around 10% of the Syrian population Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, constituting around 10 per cent of the ...

. She has won funding awards from the

Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) is a public agency founded in 1994 by the government of Quebec. CALQ offers support and funding for art projects in the performing arts, multidisciplinary arts, circus arts, visual arts, med ...

and the

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal in ...

. She has exhibited locally and international including her 2009 ''Coffin Nest'' exhibition in Damascus about Iraq's mass graves, at the 18th

in 2012, as well as in Amsterdam, Beirut, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Marseille, Montreal, New York City, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Seoul, and Tokyo. Baker is a member of TASHT collective, which was created 2016, collective originally come from the Middle East. Hourig is Armenian, but born in Lebanon; Khadija is Kurdish from Syria; Shahrzad is Iranian; and Kumru is Kurdish hailing from Turkey. 1 Having lived in volatile regions before calling Canada home, all four women have inherited memories of atrocities from their families, just as they have all lived through civil wars, military coups, bloody revolutions, and political repressions. It is these inherited and difficult lived memories that compose the fabric of their individual interdisciplinary work and the broader canvas of our collective work together In 2020, Baker was Cultural Diversity in Visual Arts Award winner. In 2018, the Stewart Hall Art Gallery hosted her ''Trajectoires'' exhibition that she created with artists Lysette Yoselevitz and Dorothée Nowak. The exhibition was also later featured at the Maison de la culture Mercier. Her ''Birds Crossing Borders'' multimedia piece featuring Muzna Dureid, and two other anonymous Syrian women, was exhibited at the Salle de diffusion de Parc-Extension in 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Khadija Living people Concordia University alumni Syrian artists Syrian women artists Kurdish artists Kurdish women artists Syrian emigrants to Canada 21st-century Kurdish people 21st-century Syrian women 21st-century Syrian artists 21st-century Syrian people Year of birth missing (living people)