Collection in Conversation: Mariam Magsi and Faith Rajasingham

Mariam Magsi and Faith Rajasingham will explore what it means to subvert the colonial history of photography, build an authentic art practice, and carve out careers as artists and educators whose practices are rooted in storytelling, integrity, and community.

This talk is part of the ongoing series Collection in Conversation, co-presented with the University of Toronto Scarborough Library, in which artists with works in the Doris McCarthy Gallery Collection participate in discussions about their work, practice, and approach to artmaking, with other contemporary artists, writers, activists, and professionals.

Mariam Magsi’s work, , is held in the Doris McCarthy Gallery Collection, acquired in 2022. The work is currently on view in the U of T Scarborough Library.

This program is free and will take place in the Student Lounge at the University of Toronto Scarborough Library. Space is limited, registration is required. If you have accommodation needs, please let us know through the registration form or contact [email protected].

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Mariam Magsi (she/they) is a Karachi-born, Toronto-based artist, writer, and educator whose practice spans photography, video, performance, poetry, and installation art, grounded in decolonial, feminist frameworks. Rooted in Baloch-Punjabi heritage, Mariam's multidisciplinary practice draws on tribal/cultural textiles + paraphernalia, photographic archives, food, and orally transferred intergenerational histories to examine how identity, gender, power, and migration are shaped and contested within public and private life. Through projects that investigate veiling (Purdah), ancestral memory + belonging (Daughter of the Tribe), and South Asian hospitality (Dawat Yan Project), Mariam positions the domestic as an archive, and a political site, where displacement, resistance, survival, poetry and protest intersect. Mariam holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Media & Design from OCAD University and a BFA with Honours in Studio Art and English Literature from the University of Toronto. Her work has been featured and exhibited in VICE, Vogue Italia, CNN, British Journal of Photography, Black Flash Magazine, Scene Arabia, Toronto Star, Sarajevo Photography Festival, Indian Photo Festival, Pride Photo Amsterdam, SCOPE Miami, Simurgh International Film & Arts Festival, Art Gallery of Ontario and more.

Faith Rajasingham is the Manager of Programs and Services at Scarborough Arts. She is a museum professional with a background in Canadian immigration history and community education. Having earned her MA in History (2019, York University), Faith took her love for Scarborough into the museum field. In her past employment with Scarborough Museum (Toronto History Museums) she has curated exhibits and programs that cater to Scarborough’s multiple diasporas. Focused on Canadian immigration, transnational communities, colonialism, and sovereignty movements, her research and work aims to provide resources and services for racialized and/or marginalized IBPOC communities in Toronto. In March of 2019, Faith co-founded Tamil Reads to provide Tamil diasporic communities access to education made by their communities for their communities. Faith’s deep love for Scarborough’s communities, places, and stories is informed by her own family’s migration history to the land. As settlers from Tamil Sri Lanka, Faith grounds her work within the lands and communities she lives, works, and studies with.

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Image: Mariam Magsi, Kabilay Ki Baiti (Daughter of the Tribe), 2019. Silver-Halide print, performance, found objects, Balochi Chador, Balochi Shalwar Kameez, gulaab (roses), inherited paraphernalia on Kodak Premium Metal, 43 x 203 cm. Collection of the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough. Funded by the Office of the Vice-President and Principal, 2022, through the course: VPSC51H3 - Curatorial Perspectives II.

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