Haniyyah Khan

searching for comfort

This series project, "Finding Space," explores the shifts in migration through my personal experience. Using images from my childhood, I reflect on the emotions and changes that have resulted in my resilience today.  

Selling all of our belongings and wrapping up our lives in a single van, my parents moved from San Diego to Calgary as our last resort. With the heightened anxiety of 9/11 and the lack of PR approval granted to Muslim immigrants, this was the only way to find some stability after years of struggling. I remember my parents slowly selling our things as I ate a slice of plastic cheese on the kitchen floor on our last day home. I was thrilled about the big road trip ahead but upset that I had to leave the treats my teacher used to give us in class. 

Being at this impressionable age, I understood the changes I would be facing, but no one had explained what my life would be like after this all happened. It wasn't until I was in school for a while and learning to be independent that I realized how this transition would continue to affect me, from simple things like a new school to struggling to make connections because of my cultural differences. However, with these changes at this time, as an adult, these things make me resilient. I created a space between the two worlds I was familiar with - my Pakistani upbringing and the Western influences I was around at school. What has helped me through constant change is connection through community. Living in Singapore this past year, I've learned to make space for myself regardless of where I am.  

As I explore these ideas of change, using printmaking in this work has allowed me to shift and change things as I create. Sometimes, things don't go how I want them to, but I can rely on my skills to make something out of nothing. Through this process, I have welcomed change in my work and the struggle for consistency. Experiencing a lack of control in my childhood, I use print to create numerous editions and pathways of artistic exploration, as I know I'm always learning. Being able to bounce back in this work was essential to me as it also explores the resilience I have garnered through my experience of migrating to Canada during my early childhood. 

Artist statement

As a Pakistani-Canadian artist, my interest lies in connections that surpass cultural and nationalistic borders. I examine themes of tradition involving ideas of community, migration, care, and shifts in cross-cultural identities.My multidisciplinary practice is primarily print-based, encompassing relief, intaglio, etching, lithography, photo-lithography, photography, collage, and textile media. These processes allow me to focus on the value of craftsmanship which honour my ancestral South Asian art forms.

I enjoy creating works that predominantly use South Asian iconography, particularly through textile patterns and text, as they illustrate ideas of tribal identity. My most recent print exploration using photo-lithography draws on a representational approach using collaged photographs of myself. Within these projects, the images are grounded by south asian iconography that binds me to my Pakistani community regardless of where I am. Here, this iconography is used as a tool to ground myself regardless of the changes around me as a form of familiarity. 

Using these themes in my work, I hope my work can bring a sense of understanding and familiarity among other immigrants who have felt a sense of alienation through their experiences of migration and adaptation to a new land. I want to be an artist that challenges the boundaries of tradition in contemporary art practice and illustrate themes that are familiar to my ethnic communities that have not been explored in the art community in canada. 

artist biography

Haniyyah Khan is a Pakistani-Canadian visual artist and a recent graduate from the University of Calgary. She is a multidisciplinary artist predominantly working in textile, drawing and printmaking materials as a way to explore the complexities of the South Asian diaspora. Using her previous background in the scientific discipline of physics and chemistry, her artistic approach is influenced by experimentation and technical procedures in printmaking. She explores the complexities of identity and selfhood informed by emotional, personal stories of immigration of herself and others. Intertwining Eastern themes into conventional western artmaking practices, she explores these ideas in a new light.