Sabrine S. Hakam
Researcher/Artist
Sabrine S. Hakam is a researcher, visual artist, and writer working across urban studies, visual culture, public history, and the politics of representation. Her research examines how cities are experienced, represented, and contested, with a particular interest in socio-spatial infrastructures and the relationship between everyday experience and broader political and cultural processes.
Since 2021, Hakam has developed an interdisciplinary visual practice alongside her academic research, working across photography, exhibition-making, public history, and community arts. Her work includes Power in Portraits, an ongoing project exploring the relationship between photography, identity, memory, and representation, and Decolonize Everything!, a tongue-in-cheek visual project that uses culture jamming and pop art to challenge colonial legacies and make the complex processes of decolonization accessible to a wider public.
Sabrine has also worked in community-based and public-history contexts, including curating The Pavilion, a community-based exhibition at Market Lane Public School in Toronto, and animating Mackenzie House, one of ten Toronto History Museums, as part of the Toronto History Museums mentorship programme. Her photographic work has been exhibited at Kitchener City Hall’s Rotunda Gallery, the Museum of Dufferin, Artspace Regent Park, SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre, and Bayside Gallery in Toronto.
King’s College London, PhD. Geography
2020
London School of Economics, MSc. Urbanisation and Development
2014
University of Oxford, MPhil. Development Studies
2012
New York University, BSc. Media, Culture and Communication
2010
Solo Shows
Power in Portraits - Kitchener City Hall Rotunda Gallery - Kitchener, Ontario
2025
Embodying Health x Weber and Shandwick PR - Toronto HQ
2025
We Are Our Words - Toronto History Museums (Mackenzie House), Toronto, Ontario
2024
Decolonize Everything! - Bayside Gallery Exhibition - Toronto, Ontario
2024
Postcolonialism 101 - Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival Toronto, Ontario
2022
The Birth of Modernisation - Unity in Diversity - Museum of Dufferin, Ontario
2024
The Birth of Modernisation - SPAO Photowalk Exhibition - Ottawa, Ontario
2024
The Pavilion - Market Lane Public School, Toronto, Ontario
2024
Power in Portraits - Fashion Art Toronto
2023
Calyx - 264 The Esplanade, Jamii, Toronto, Ontario
2023
Awards/Mentorships
2025 - Public History Award Nominee, Heritage Toronto
2024 - Best in Show, Unity in Diversity, Museum of Dufferin
2024 - The Reset Mentorship, Toronto History Museums
2023/24 - Newcomer Artist Mentorship, Toronto Arts Council