INFO

ARTIST STATEMENT
In my practice, I delve into themes related to contemporary craft discourse, design anthropology, (afro)futurism and diasporic materiality. Shaya is often called to textiles and clay as a starting point to create wearable art, jewelry adornments, and installations. Through the meditative processes of weaving, felting, and handbuilt ceramics, I explore the nuances of my positionality and the liminality of rites of passage which often leads to sculptural textile and ceramic works. Weaving however has been particularly central for me as a way of exploring the poetic vastness of the warp and weft as it relates to the temporal and language. My curiosity about the poetics and politics of space informs her interests in creating immersive, sometimes playful, installations that embrace the emergent possibilities of spatial design. 

BIO
Shaya Ishaq is an interdisciplinary artist, materials designer, and writer currently based in Portland, OR. She has a BFA in Fibres & Material Practices from Concordia University where she minored in Anthropology and had previously attended NSCAD University. Shaya has pursued her research as a fellow of the Textiles + Materiality Research Cluster, a branch of the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology where she was awarded an undergraduate research fellowship. Additionally, she was the inaugural Black Perspective Research fellow at Concordia University in 2022. She has pursued residencies at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (Maine, USA), Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (Maine, USA), and the Arquetopia Foundation (Puebla, Mexico), among others.

She has exhibited her work at venues including SAW, Patel Brown, Khyber Centre for the Arts (Nova Scotia), Ottawa Art Gallery, and Art Gallery of Burlington (Ontario). Her words have been published in Studio Magazine, Canadian Art, and Public Parking. She has also given presentations on her art practice and research at places such as the NIA Centre, NSCAD University, and Concordia University, and the School of Art at the University of Manitoba. Shaya has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and was a recipient of the William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists (2023).