Jamelie Hassan is a visual artist and activist born in London, Ontario where she is based. Since the 1970's, she has exhibited her art widely in Canada and internationally while also practicing as a lecturer, writer, and independent curator. In 2001 she was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts. With roots in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, Jamelie’s career developed as she navigated her understanding of the cultural marginalization of diasporic communities. The approach she takes to her work engages the fractures of colonialism while also nurturing spaces for alternative cultural life in London and beyond.

Beginning with Jamelie’s reflections as an early and distinguished Muslim Canadian artist, Jamelie will also share her personal journey archiving and working with archives. Most recently, alongside her siblings, Jamelie has been recovering records and stories tied to her family’s migration to the Americas via personal collections and the public record. This includes the publication of Portraits of Sam Hallick: Modern Arab Presence in Early Twentieth-Century North America by Jamelie’s brother, Dr. Salah D. Hassan, Director of Global Studies at Michigan State University. 

Followed by an audience Q&A, this is an evening dedicated to reflections on art-making, place-making and archival collections that enrich our understanding of the past, present, and future of Muslim life in Canada.

Date & Time: Wednesday April 29, 6:30-8:30PM
Location, Jackman Humanities Building (JH100), University of Toronto
Register here.

Jamelie Hassan participated in an international group exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2023-2024, with her mixed media installation, "Slippers of Disobedience". Being and Belonging: Contemporary Women Artists from the Islamic World and Beyond was a bold exhibition that explored the defining issues of our time from the perspective of 25 women artists from or connected to the broader Islamic world spanning across West Africa to Southeast Asia or living in diaspora. Deftly interrogating themes of identity, power, sexuality, and home, this exhibition resisted simple stereotypes with outstanding artworks from both emerging and well-established artists.

Being and Belonging in the News

• Toronto Star: The diverse women of the Islamic world get a show at the ROM 
• The Globe and Mail - At the ROM, female artists from the Islamic world hunt for metaphors
• NUVO - Being and Belonging Opens at the Royal Museum of Ontario

In her installation entitled Poppy Cover for Holy Roller Tank, Jamelie Hassan asks us to reflect on the role of the poppy in our military history. This installation work from 2010 was originally created to cover the tank, an artifact from World War II installed in the city's central park. Camouflage netting has 4000 red silk poppies threaded through the netting. The  installation pays respect to the symbol of the poppies we wear on Remembrance Day in memory of those who died in war. The poppy also has particular significancee for those Canadian soldiers who served in Afghanistan where fields of poppies are cultivated - some for medicinally purposes but also, the majority of the poppy crops are for the international opium trade controlled by criminal elements.

This work was commissioned by London Ontario Live Arts (LOLA) curated by Paul Walde and was installed on the Holy Roller tank at the time of the exhibition for three days. The artwork is in the collection of the artist and has been presented in many different galleries across Canada but the only time it was exhibited on a tank was on the Holy Roller tank monument in Victoria Park, London, Ontario.

This artwork is presently stored in the artist's studio awaiting the next opportunity to be presented to the public. Any reasonable proposal for future presentations of this significant artwork will be considered by the artist.

​In honour of London, Ontario's 2020 Wordsfest, artist Jamelie Hassan is collaborating with Brown & Dickson Bookstore on Richmond St. and has installed in one of their windows her blow-up photo: “Cairo Bookseller”, 1990.
 
If you look closely you will discover copies of a book in the towering pile of books for sale - which caused great controversy around the globe. Can you read the name of the author and the title of the book?

Pleased to announce that the booklet for the exhibition "Translations" held at the Campbell River Art Gallery on Vancouver Island, British Columbia has been re-published in the online cultural journal Rungh.org. You can visit the journal page here.  

On Thursday, September 24, 2020, Jamelie Hassan will  be one of 15 leading artists and speakers discussing the future of art in a changing world during a digital benefit for the Aga Khan Museum. The incredible lineup represents a wide array and luminaries from the worlds of art, film, literature, music and science. Emceed by renowned comedian, actor and radio show host Ali Hassan with talks moderated by author and award winning Canadian broadcast personality Ziya Tong. Click here to view the artists and speakers