This month we meet artist Amnna Attia, a Toronto-based artist. They were curated by Saif Khan of the AGO Youth Advisory. “Amnna is young, proudly Palestinian and holds clear intent with her work. Her embroidery pieces explore themes of reconnection with land, culture and heritage. As a fellow child of the diaspora, this deeply resonates with me. Amnna’s art is a radical reclamation of her identity. It draws back to the Palestinian tradition of tarteez in an attempt to hold onto an identity subjected to decades of violence and displacement − violence that our institutions often refuse to acknowledge.” 

Artist Bio:

Born in the United States, Amnna Attia is a Toronto-based artist studying in the Contemporary Arts Department at Etobicoke School of the Arts. Attia explores her Arab-Palestinian heritage through digital art and embroidery. Her interest in her personal heritage sparked a passion for learning about other cultures, exploring their customs, and what makes them unique including styles of artistic expression. Attia was a curator at the Albright–Knox Art Gallery and is now a curator with Student Art Spaces Canada. Attia is also curating a space in Art Miami at the Fearless Artist Pop-Up Gallery, exhibiting her own work along with art pieces created by Palestinian workshop members. For the past three months, Attia has facilitated 10 workshops in two community parks, online, and at the TIFF Bell Lightbox to teach the history, practise and significance of Palestinian embroidery within Palestinian culture. Attia’s artwork has been exhibited in fifteen group shows and published on ten platforms.

Curator Bio:

Saif-Ullah Khan is a student, community arts worker and multidisciplinary creative currently based in Milton, Ontario. Saif’s practice centres around the exploration of systems that racialized youth in so-called Canada navigate and aims to challenge and reimagine structures of policing and carceral violence. Taking inspiration from practices of transformative justice and abolition, he hopes his work can serve as blueprints for building systems that truly care for everyone. He currently works as the project coordinator for Student Art Spaces Canada and is the project lead for TOP Zine’s “Abolition is Creation” arts project. He also works as a video host for #RisingYouth’s video capsule project and the social media coordinator for MY Voice Magazine.