Reem Al-Wakeal

“The artist explores the literal space between her Egyptian roots while living in Canada. Throughout the video, she explores her dual identity by looking at Egyptian and Canadian culture side by side. Her experiences in Cairo and Toronto allow her to live a dual imagination of what it feels like to live in Toronto while maintaining her Egyptian identity. The film overlooking the Toronto skyline resembles the artist maintaining the linguistic Arabic language by watching and listening to Egyptian films and music. The song, in the beginning, expressed the constant shift between love and struggle which reflects the artists’ way of trying to fit between both nations while remaining an outsider due to her identity mix. The clip ends with the Toronto TTC subway moving towards the west while the Egyptian subway moves to the East as a metaphor showing the movement of emotions that the artist has when navigating her national identity as an Egyptian-Canadian living in Toronto.”

Reem Al-Wakeal is a Toronto based multidisciplinary creative of Egyptian and Lebanese descent. She works with different mediums including video, photography, design, and occasionally artist multiples. Her works explore themes of nature and identity such as culture and religion. As an emerging artist, she continues to explore different topics and mediums through research. Reem has had her work featured in ARTSIDEOUT, Gallery 1265, in/progress Magazine, the Annual Juried Art Exhibition and the Annual ACM Studio Art Exhibition at the University of Toronto.