Nabiha Haider is a graduate from University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus, with an Honours Bachelor of Arts in the Studio Specialist Program. Nabiha's artistic practice challenges social constructs through a form of play. With unconventional thinking and over-engineering, her practice engages with sculptural and two-dimensional works.
Gestural Machines is a series with three works; each has its own simple, yet playful gesture related to a social construct.
Please do not look into birdhouse, bird frightens easily.
When the viewer approaches the birdhouse, the ‘bird’ becomes frightened.
Please do not tap on glass, fish frightens easily.
When the viewer taps on the glass, the ‘fish’ becomes frightened.
Please watch your step.
Viewers must watch their step as the frightened furball brushes past their feet.
Please feed me? is a self-portrait of the artist in the form of a Chindogu invention. The artist wanted to build a machine that would automate a simple, every day task; and that task was eating.
The artist’s 'feeding machine' was installed onto a study carrel and personalized with items from her study desk to replicate her working environment. The artist’s machine is absurd and over-engineered, but speaks of unconventional thinking and inventiveness.
Documentation by Victor Park
The artist collected plastic bags off the street and re-fabricated them into miniature plastic bags. The miniature plastic bags were then placed into kits and sold as artist multiples.
The artist felt a sense of animism with the sight of plastic bags fluttering around in the streets, so she decided to catch those wild plastic bags, and domesticate them by placing them as part of kits. The kits included a miniature fan and a mount for the plastic bags to be leashed on to; making available this animistic beauty to people indoors.
The BUKKU YON ANNA is an artist book kit that includes a step-by-step manual on how to complete a four-hole, Japanese bookbinding. With the items included in the kit, the manual instructs the host on how to perform a four-hole, Japanese bookbinding on the manual itself.
To view a PDF version of the BUKKU YON ANNA Manual, click here.
There are two blue teacups on a table; each cup contains pink, Kashmiri tea and a teaspoon that stirs the tea continuously. Above is a poem written by a teaspoon who dreams of being a praised and valued like a teapot. This work reflects the social and psychological implications of gender inequality.
Photo documentation by Lauren Kadoski
A firefly was the starting form for this work. The artist wanted to recreate a firefly in a minimalist way using an LED, while also including some sort of ‘flight’ element. An ephemerality was achieved by using helium balloons as the switch to control the flickering of the LEDs with movement.
The artist replicated a Frank Sinatra record into a drawing using graphite pencil. She then connected the drawing to a circuit with a piezo buzzer, achieving sound from a two-dimensional drawing. The graphite acted like a variable resistor, producing varying pitches once the circuit was complete. Over time, the drawing altered so there was never a consistent pattern of sounds.
nabiha underscore rizvi at hotmail dot ca
