Camille Zakharia

Camille Zakharia graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering from the American University of Beirut in 1985 before leaving Lebanon because of the Civil War (1975-90), living in the USA, Greece, Turkey, and Bahrain. He immigrated to Canada in 1995, where he graduated with a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (now NSCAD University), Halifax, in 1997, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1998. In 1999 he moved back to Bahrain.

Using photography, photomontage and collage, Zakharia makes work about identity and displacement, reflecting his own life journey. He sees collage a means of expressing a fragmented identity and reassembling memories. Cultivate Your Garden (1998), shown at Sharjah Biennial 2007, is a hybrid of photographs of the places he has called ‘home’ and the friends he has made there. He has also made work about others’ experiences of displacement and exile for his ongoing project Arab Artists & Artists of Arab Origin (begun 1998), Elusive Homelands (1999-2000) and Belonging (2010-2012).

Zakharia has exhibited his work extensively since 1985, with solo shows at Katara
Art Center, Doha (2012); Bin Matar House, Bahrain (2010); Virginia Commonwealth
University School of the Arts, Doha (2006); Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, Halifax (2006) and Wichita Center for the Arts (1997).

Zakharia was shortlisted for the 2009 V&A Jameel Prize for Markings (2008) and the related artist’s book Division Lines (2004-6). His Coastal Promenade was the photographic essay for the Reclaim project that won Bahrain the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2010.

Zakharia’s works are in public collections including Canadian Museum of Civilisation, Victoria & Albert Museum, Musée Suisse de l’Appareil Photographique, Wichita Center for the Arts, National Museum of Bahrain, Qatar Museum Authority, Barjeel Art Foundation, and Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery.

Submitted by Janet Rady Fine Art