CSACH is delighted to have Oliver Husain as our 2025 artist-in-residence!
Artist Statement
During my residency I want to continue working on two interconnected projects related to Indian history. Both are linked by two figures of the Indian independence movement, Sardar Patel and Subash Chandra Bose.
Caption: Untitled watercolor sketch, Oliver Husain, 2025
Biography
Oliver Husain is a Toronto-based artist and filmmaker who works across disciplines. His practice builds on collaborations with artists and friends, often starting from a fragment of history, a personal encounter, a rumor, or a memory. He cheerfully confuses art world orthodoxies and the conventions of cinema; deploying dance, puppetry, costume, and special effects as tools to transform his research into narratives that charm viewers into intricately constructed complications.
Website: husain.de
Recent exhibitions include: DNCB (in collaboration with Kerstin Schroedinger) at ICA Los Angeles (2025); Trafo, Budapest (2025) and MOCA, Toronto (2024); The Beauties of Lucknow, Massey College, Toronto (2023); lenticoolers (with Malik McKoy) Susan Hobbs, Toronto (2023), drip-drop.tv (multiple performances, with Amy Lam, 2023). Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Remai Modern, Saskatoon; Western Front, Vancouver; and Art Gallery of York University, Toronto. Festival screenings include Berlinale International Filmfestival; Oberhausen Short Film Festival (awards 1998 and 2012); and Experimenta Festival, Bangalore (award 2017). A monograph on his work, Spoiler Alert, was published in 2012 by AGYU. Nang 8, The Loud Mess Issue - a magazine on cinema in Asia edited by Oliver Husain and Shai Heredia was published in August 2020.