Farihah Aliyah Shah
From her own family lineage to histories of advertising, Shah’s work confronts the colonial gaze of white supremacy. She engages archives, documentary, self-portraiture, and constructed imagery as acts of reclamation. In Without a Leg to Stand On, the artist reclaims Black skin as subject in the photographic image, exploring the history of the medium’s privileging of white skin and later dark coloured commodity objects.
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Portrait 01 from Looking for Lucille 2017
Portrait 02 from Looking for Lucille 2017
Young Coconut from Along the Demerara 2017
View from St. Hubert from Looking for Lucille 2017
Untitled 03 from Without a Leg to Stand On, 2021
Untitled 04 from Without a Leg to Stand On, 2021
Untitled 10 from Without a Leg to Stand On, 2021
Untitled 09 from Without a Leg to Stand On, 2021
Untitled 06 from Without a Leg to Stand On, 2021
Still 01 and 02 from And With These Hands, 2020
Also A Chair (Clip) from Without a Leg to Stand On 2021. Watch full video.
Farihah Aliyah Shah is a lens-based artist based in Bradford, Ontario. She holds a BFA in Photography with a minor in Integrated Media from OCAD University. Using photography, video and sound installation, her practice engages photographic history and explores identity formation through the colonial gaze, race, connectivity to land, and collective memory.
Shah was the 2019 recipient of the John Hartman Award. She currently is a member at Gallery 44 - Centre for Contemporary Photography and Women Photograph an organization that advocates for Female Identified and Non-Binary photojournalists. Shah has exhibited internationally in Asia, Europe, and North America.