Tazeen QAYYUM

Tazeen Qayyum (She/Her) is a Pakistani-Canadian contemporary artist based in Oakville. Trained as a miniature painter of South Asian and Persian traditions, Qayyum continues to explore new materials and processes through drawing, installation, sculpture, video and performance. Repetition, rhythm, balance, and geometry are methodological devices that allow her to create visually complex artworks and offer viewers a multi-layered understanding of materials and techniques used. Drawing from complex issues of belonging and displacement within a socio-political context, her art is a way for her to navigate identity and beliefs living in the diaspora.

Exhibiting nationally and internationally, Qayyum’s work is included in several private and public collections, some of which include the Welt Museum, Vienna, Austria; TD Canada Trust Permanent Collection, Toronto; Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pengzhou, China; The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto; National Gallery of Amman, Jordan; and National Art Gallery, Nepal.

Qayyum’s work has also been featured in critical reviews in several publications, including in BlackFlash Magazine (2021) Canadian Art (2018), The Globe and Mail, Canada (2011 & 2015), and The New York Times(2009). She was the recipient of the Excellence in Art Award 2015 by the CCAI (Canadian Community Arts Initiative) and was nominated for the Jameel Prize (2013) and K.M. Hunter Award (2014). She has been awarded grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and UNESCO.  Qayyum received her BFA in Visual Arts from the National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan. Along with her artistic practice, Qayyum teaches workshops in traditional miniature painting and works as the co-founder of Art Address, an interactive space for artistic discourse in Oakville. She currently serves as a member of the Arts Council at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital, and previously sat on the Board of Directors at Oakville Galleries and the Advisory Board at Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga.

Tazeenqayyum.com 

Faisal Anwar

Faisal Anwar is a Pakistan-Canadian hybrid artist, curator, and immersive art producer working at the intersection of diverse mediums, emerging technologies, and ecological and human storytelling. His multidisciplinary practice blends digital and knowledge-based systems, complex and large-scale data, interactive installations, and advanced networked environments to explore space, time, memory, and human engagement. Inspired by ancestral knowledge and translating complex scientific and environmental research into poetic, immersive experiences, Anwar creates participatory ecosystems that reveal the unseen relationships among people, environments, and emotional landscapes. His installations reflect on the fragile balance between humans and the natural world, offering spaces of wonder, contemplation, and poetic encounter. His interest lies in exploring how we live,remember, and imagine futures together in a time of profound environmental change. Anwar served as Chief Curator for the Karachi Biennale 2022, themed “Collective Imagination, Now and the Next,” and is the founder of CultureLab. art, a studio dedicated to exploring climate change, wellness, sustainability, emerging economies, and social innovation. He is also the co-founder of ArtAddress, an artist-led collective fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue and experimentation in cross-global contexts.

His projects presented internationally include Breathe, a large-scale animated projection at ArtonTheMart, Chicago (2025); A Place I Call Home, a community-driven installation shown at Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2025); CharBagh, group show Garden in the Machine at the Surrey Art Gallery (2019) and at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2016) highlight his integration of nature, architecture, and interactive design. His ongoing data-driven project, Tweet Garden, has been presented at the Royal Ontario Museum (2012), the Art Gallery of Mississauga (2014), and the TRED Conference at the University of Massachusetts Boston (2014). Other notable exhibitions include the First Karachi Biennale (2017), the Winter Olympics in Vancouver (2010), and Nuit Blanche Toronto (2008–2016). Anwar’s accolades include the Labverde Residency in the Amazon Rainforest (2019), the co-awarded SSHRC Insight Development Grant for +City (2013), and the Artists as Innovator Grant for IntoIt! (2007), a project supporting children with multiple disabilities.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from the National College of Arts, Lahore (1996), and completed the Interactive Arts Program at the Canadian Film Centre’s Habitat-LAB (2004) and saving as mentor and advisor with The Forum Mentor Program, Scotiabank Women Initiative, Canada and Faculty of Media, Creative Arts, and Design Humber College, Toronto.