Art Forum Guest Speaker, Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman
Posted in: Announcements
- Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman
- April 15, 2024, 5:30 – 7:00 pm
- Calcia Hall, Room 138
Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman is an emerging multidisciplinary artist, exploring her first-generation Canadian experiences through mixed media paintings and video works. A graduate of Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Abdourahman’s art delves into concepts of third space theory and challenges notions of home. Her work addresses themes of memory, caretaking, and the healing process, while also navigating discussions on cultural landscapes without contributing to the overconsumption of traumatic imagery in the Western tradition.
Abdourahman’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in healing from grief, ancestral trauma, and the burden of memory. As the eldest daughter raised in a Canadian suburb to immigrant parents, her distant connection to her parents’ homelands in Somalia and India manifests as a constant search for home in her work. This sentiment, which she refers to as the “second chase,” explores the diasporic experience, discrimination, and the longing to return to the homeland, emphasizing the importance of care and self-preservation as tools against systemic oppression.
Abdourahman is a graduate of Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2020). She has been awarded the Salt Spring National Art Prize Joan McConnel Award and is a recipient of the Canada Council of the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council grant (2023). She was a finalist for the Emerging IBPOC Artist Award (2023). She has previously exhibited at the Senate of Canada (2023), Ottawa City Hall (2023), Digital Art Resource Centre (2022), Gallery 101 (2022), and Ottawa Art Gallery (2021). She has also led creative workshops with Ottawa Art Gallery, Somerset West Community Health Centre, and the Ottawa Catholic School Board (2021-23). Her work is held in various private collections, including the City of Ottawa Art Collection and the Art Volt Collection.