The Artists of 2023: Hajra Waheed
By HG Masters
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Portrait of HAJRA WAHEED. Courtesy the artist.
“An eye for an eye, leaving everyone blind.” Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of civil resistance, satyagraha, the lines appear faintly on a nearly pitch-black screen at the beginning of Hajra Waheed’s 11-minute projection A Letter From My Sister, November 16, 2015 (2023). As the screen is illuminated, clouds appear in a darkened sky accompanied by a deep, resonating soundtrack, and a narrative of colonial violence and displacement unfolds, based on a correspondence with the artist’s sister, a scholar studying Muslim communities across the India-Pakistan divide. The video debuted in Athens alongside a companion work, The Spiral (2019), in November, in the solo exhibition “Witness Lines,” curated by iLiana Fokianaki at the nonprofit State of Concept.