If I had to take a guess, which I’m going to, I’d say Sanaa Hamid would be that person you know who’s always on the go and generally has three projects going on and manages to keep them all fairly straight and she gets really, really excited talking about what she’s working on. It shows through the list of projects on the side of her website. With titles like, “My Body is Not Your Battleground”, “Cultural Appropriation: A Conversation” and “Diasporic Cyanotypes” you can tell there’s some big topics she’s approaching with her photography. Each of them has her objective explained before the series of photos, which is great and helps explain what her vision is for each of these projects.
I think my favourite thing about her work is that she’s not afraid to tackle these big topics. Her MBINYB project was a product of a Kickstarter project that was funded and she travelled to Pakistan and talked to young women about what it’s like growing up in Pakistan. Her Cultural Appropriation series tackles both sides of a very sensitive subject, allowing both sides tell their story, whether or not you agree with them. There are so many big ideas and topics that she’s working on and it’s amazing just to look at all these portraits and seeing how they connect together. There’s also a tone to it all, informative and passionate, that just leaps off at you. As well, these are all eye openers for me. These are things I have no experience with, that I know almost nothing about and projects like this give me the opportunity to hear and see these stories and try and gain an understanding in a world that I know nothing about.
One of my favourite things about the internet is the ability to find all these young people who are doing such amazing things, producing work that they’re passionate about and that has a strong voice. Hamid’s work is definitely one of these and I’m interested in seeing how all these projects move forward in the future.
Blue Eyed Sight 