Alumni & Friends - Ways to get involved and give back
Department of Arts, Culture and Media

Hiba Abdallah

Hiba Abdallah
Sessional Lecturer I
Email
h.abdallah@utoronto.ca
Program
Studio Art

Biography

Hiba Abdallah is a text-based artist who frequently works with others. Her practice explores the structural legacies and futures of cities by researching the intersections of hospitality, agitation, communication and disagreement as productive frameworks for re-imagining public agency. She has created work across media—from public interventions to community projects, gallery exhibitions, and publications.

She has spent over a decade creating work with the artist collective Broken City Lab, an artist-led interdisciplinary collective and non-profit organization that unfolds curiosities around locality, education, and creative practice leading towards civic change. They have worked extensively across North America creating site-specific projects responding to each community’s unique characteristics and challenges. 
 
Recent exhibitions and public projects include 100 years then and hereafter at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, Everything I Wanted to Tell You for Nuit Blanche Scarborough, Rehearsing Disagreement for MOCA Toronto and A List of Antagonisms for the CAFKA Biennial in Kitchener, ON.  

 

 

 

Education

M.F.A, University of Guelph, Studio Art Program, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
B.F.A, University of Windsor, Studio Art Program, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

 

 

 

Teaching Interests

Collaborative practice; Art in public space; Art and activism; Digital practice; Art and politics.

 

 

 

Research Interests

Text/language as agency; Structures change; Public agency; Collectives and collaboration; Productive disagreement

 

 

 

Awards and Grants

2017 Canadian Federation of University Women’s Scholarship
2016 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2015 Board of Graduate Studies Research Scholarship
2012 Sobey Art Award Nomination, Long List Nomination for Ontario with Broken City Lab

 

 

 

Publications

Abdallah, Hiba. “Everything I Wanted To Tell You: Collaborative Practice in Public Space.” Holding Ground: Nuit Blanche and Other Ruptures, edited by Julie Nagam and Janine Marchessault, PUBLIC Access , Toronto, ON, 2022, pp. 59–63. ISBN: 978-0-921344-56-8. http://www.publicjournal.ca/holding-ground-nuit-blanche-and-other-ruptures-now-available/

 

 

 

Exhibitions

100 Years Then and Hereafter (solo exhibition) 
March 15 – May 15, 2021
Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (Bowmanville, Ontario)
https://www.vac.ca/present/100-years-then-and-hereafter

we remain profoundly and infinitely connected (public art commission) 
2020
McMaster Museum of Art (Hamilton, ON)
 
Rehearsing Disagreement (solo exhibition) 
In collaboration with Justin Langlois
September 22, 2018 – November 11, 2018
Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto)