The Worshipful published an interview with Aya Haidar by Amy Ma on 12 June 2024, introducing the textile artist as something of a local celebrity in Hackney, a mother of four whose work is deeply personal, political, sometimes provocative and often extremely moving.
Haidar tells Ma that her parents fled Lebanon's civil war in 1982, married in Jordan and settled in Saudi Arabia, and that her mother travelled to give birth to her in Texas so she would have a passport, later doing the same for her sister in Canada. The interview turns to her residency with Deveron Projects in rural Aberdeenshire, which aimed to integrate 120 Syrian refugees into a small town; the conversations she heard while working in the café there became Soleless, a series in which she embroidered people's experiences onto the worn soles of shoes. It also covers Highly Strung, acquired in its entirety by the Guggenheim, and the response of women who saw it installed: "The volume of work that we do that is invisible, that is taken for granted, gets completely brushed off." She names Mona Hatoum as the reason she wanted to become an artist, and recalls exhibiting alongside her at Kettle's Yard and the Whitworth.
Aya Haidar studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and works across embroidery, installation and participatory projects, with programmes for the V&A, Tate and Kettle's Yard. Her solo exhibition Battlegrounds was shown at Tabari, which represents her.
