Zainab Hussain

Zainab Hussain is a first generation Indian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist and Illustrator based in Ottawa, Ontario. Working in photography, paint, textiles, sound, plants, text, and installation, Hussain is interested in the intertwining of multiple histories and narratives, notions of untranslatability, what is hidden and revealed, and the authenticity of memory and identity. Her work often uses humour to implicate viewers in considering the role that lost histories and objects play in building present and future identities within the diasporic experience.

Hussain recently received her MFA from the University of Ottawa in 2020. She has exhibited her work in Canada and the United States, notably at the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee and Shirin Gallery in N.Y.C. She is the recipient of the Michel Goulet Award for Excellence in a Master's of Fine Arts, the Suzanne Rivard-Le Moyne first prize and was a two time longlist nominee for the Scotia Bank New Generation Photo Award.