Field Trip: Farheen HaQ - Wash and fold

2021

Join Victoria-based artist Farheen HaQ for an intimate look at the ideas and practices that are currently shaping her projects. She shares with viewers how ideas take seed for her and the processes she works through to emerge with images, symbols, gestures and forms. See how Farheen’s latest works transform pain and family histories. A bundle of lentils puts to rest internalized patriarchy; a bar of soap constructed for washing in tandem embodies forgiveness. Get an inside view into Farheen’s studio practice which illuminates politics and the world context as it lives in her body and family.

Farheen’s film Drinking from My Mothers Saucer (2015) was recently exhibited at the AGGV in the exhibition Tender Works (2019). This new program Wash and fold is an opportunity to see how the ideas that informed the 2015 film have evolved over the last few years through her engaged and responsive process.

Farheen HaQ is a South Asian Muslim Canadian artist who has been living on unceded Lekwungen territory (Victoria, BC) for 20 years. She was born and raised on Haudenosanee territory (Niagara region, Ontario) amongst a tight-knit Muslim community. Her multidisciplinary practice which often employs video, installation and performance is informed by interiority, relationality, family work, embodiment, ritual and spiritual practice. Farheen’s current work focuses on understanding her family history on Canadian territories, caregiving and the body as a continuum of culture and time.

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 The Ground Above Us at the Legacy Gallery, Victoria, BC (2019), Tender Works at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC (2019), Hamara Badan at TRUCK, Calgary, AB (2018), 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.

instagram: @farheenhaqart
http://www.farheenhaq.com/

Field Trip: Art Across Canada
We are pleased to partner with a new digital arts initiative, FIELD TRIP: Art Across Canada. This new online platform delivers arts experiences with some of Canada’s most celebrated artists in a national partnership with leading arts organizations.

The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is located on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. We extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live and learn on this territory.

Image credit: Farheen HaQ, Video stills: Wash and fold: revelatory housekeeping in an age of pandemic and racial injustice (2020)Join Victoria-based artist Farheen HaQ for an intimate look at the ideas and practices that are currently shaping her projects. She shares with viewers how ideas take seed for her and the processes she works through to emerge with images, symbols, gestures and forms. See how Farheen’s latest works transform pain and family histories. A  …

Autogenerated Transcript from YouTube (if available)

Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript​.

0:03

hi everyone

0:03

i’m farheen and i’m here in victoria

0:06

british columbia

0:07

the unseated territory of the la cuangan

0:09

speaking peoples

0:11

i’m sharing a video with you today about

0:14

some recent works

0:15

that i’ve done and new work that is

0:18

emerging from that

0:20

and the audio clips that

0:24

uh run throughout the video are from

0:26

conversations

0:27

that i’ve had with friends that share my

0:30

process

0:31

thanks and i hope you’re well

0:38

when world events are happening how can

0:41

how can i not

0:42

be moved by them and how are they not

0:44

coming to my practice thinking about

0:46

george floyd

0:47

brutalized in that way

0:51

i also think about the places where

0:54

violence systemic violence plays out in

0:57

the

0:57

intimate spaces of my home and when i

0:59

read that

1:00

that he cried out for his mother

1:03

i um yeah i think it immediately touched

1:07

for me

1:08

the pain that i have around my own

1:10

mother

1:11

and this

1:14

and her body being this refuge

1:18

and i think as i have this

1:22

tender or tenuous moment in my

1:24

relationship with aisha

1:26

like i feel like my mother more and

1:29

i had this moment where i was just doing

1:32

something with my hands

1:34

and i didn’t see my own hands when i was

1:38

doing it

1:39

i see her and i feel her i think that’s

1:41

where it feels

1:42

hard for me is when i see the

1:45

the disdain or the kind of distance

1:48

which is very normal for an adolescent

1:52

and i experience that with my own

1:54

daughter

1:56

i’m put right in that place of that

1:58

distance with my mom

2:00

[Music]

2:02

the latest performance work that i did

2:04

with

2:05

the lentil floor work

2:09

that is a way for me to uncover

2:13

and kind of come face to face with the

2:15

way that patriarchy

2:17

racism colonialism has affected my

2:20

relationship with my mom and it just

2:21

brings me a lot of pain

2:29

what i’m trying to do is i want to like

2:31

i’m opening up

2:32

this really old and kind of painful way

2:35

that i saw you i’m trying to make better

2:38

and she’s like now that you’re a mom you

2:40

understand

2:41

you know i grew up in a world that

2:42

honors what men do

2:44

and so i never wanted to be like you and

2:47

i

2:48

so i in this artwork i want to do

2:51

something that

2:52

shows that i want to put to rest

2:55

and say goodbye to this old way of

2:58

knowing you

2:58

but this work comes from our time

3:02

together

3:02

and i wouldn’t have thought about this

3:04

work if

3:06

you know you and i if you didn’t cook me

3:08

doll all the time

3:09

and if we didn’t like we sat together

3:13

and like we’re sifting yeah sifting

3:16

lentils

3:17

she’s cooking we’re talking and i’m

3:19

interested in all the languages

3:21

that are happening between our bodies or

3:23

within our bodies

3:25

that aren’t spoken

3:29

one of the ways that i’m trying to

3:31

understand my own practice and

3:33

understand myself

3:34

i think it’s part of the work of

3:35

decolonizing myself

3:38

how does it course through my veins how

3:41

does it live

3:42

in my memory in my dna

3:45

and how how

3:48

are these ways of knowing and these kind

3:51

of forces

3:52

actually moving through me and being

3:54

acted out or acted upon me

3:57

i think whether it’s from you know the

3:59

years that i’ve spent doing dance

4:01

but also my meditation practice i know

4:04

there’s so much held in my body

4:10

this is this is a reconciliation for me

4:14

on a very personal level i want to be in

4:16

good relationship with my

4:18

with the place that i live and the

4:19

people that i live in community with

4:22

i want to be in good relationship with

4:24

the ancestors of this place

4:26

and that means i have a responsibility

4:28

to

4:30

learn and listen that work

4:33

led me right to my family but it’s like

4:36

go

4:37

home do your housekeeping it’s like we

4:40

all turn up in other places

4:42

with these ravaged home lives

4:45

and then we’re just kind of spreading

4:46

the mess everywhere

4:48

so i really see being engaged

4:51

in reconciliatory conversations and been

4:55

instrumental in really saying yes you

4:59

need to do this housekeeping of your own

5:04

it’s not just where i am now but i go

5:06

back to honoshami territory

5:08

and and i went to niagara where i grew

5:12

up

5:12

and i had this real sense of like grief

5:15

around this incredible

5:20

body that held me that nourished me i

5:23

just up and left

5:25

and i don’t think i could have had that

5:27

experience

5:29

if i hadn’t done and try to continue to

5:32

do the work

5:33

of making some kind of

5:38

like good arrival every day on the quang

5:41

territory where i live

5:44

the work that i’m imagining is like this

5:48

like a love letter to my auntie and to

5:51

the niagara river in the falls looking

5:53

at the metaphor of the folds of the sari

5:57

seeing this group of women as

6:00

the water and seeing the water in them

6:07

i’ve had in my mind to make this large

6:10

bar of soap

6:11

for many years and i was like what am i

6:13

going to do with like i was kind of

6:15

thinking of it as like a social practice

6:17

project and then i’ve been having these

6:19

fairly challenging conversations with my

6:21

dad

6:22

a lot of my choices have been difficult

6:24

for my father

6:26

how i manifest our culture and how i

6:29

live it and my family life and

6:32

you know how i dress at the same time

6:34

that he has kind of these

6:36

pains and disappointments i’ve been

6:39

trying to reckon with

6:41

keeping my heart open with this person

6:43

who i

6:44

love and have deep respect for all the

6:46

kind of

6:48

pain and suffering that he’s gone

6:50

through and

6:52

holding him to account in a

6:56

in the kindest way possible yeah which

6:59

doesn’t necessarily mean

7:00

verbalizing things but finding my

7:03

ground and not colluding to the power

7:06

structure that

7:07

exists in the family and

7:11

you know and how to not be a transmitter

7:13

of ongoing violence

7:18

and i think i think i keep

7:22

doing this work and i’m trying to find a

7:25

symbol

7:25

or some other ways to talk about this

7:29

and so then just just the other day i

7:32

was just vacuuming

7:33

so you know i’m just doing this really

7:34

mundane task so like i write and i write

7:36

and i think and i’m doing images and

7:37

then i just like

7:38

okay just do the housework or whatever

7:41

and pay attention to it i’m vacuuming

7:43

and then i was like oh i need to

7:47

wash my hands with abu

7:50

i think it’s important to take care of

7:52

myself and oneself

7:54

when things are hard but then to go back

7:56

because if you

7:57

you know whatever it is we don’t face

7:59

the thing

8:01

there’s no opportunity for

8:02

transformation so i think like i’m

8:04

trying to create the set of rituals

8:08

a set of conditions that we

8:12

move through that transforms into

8:15

something else

8:28

you

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