Zainub Verjee

Dr. Zainub Verjee, CM, RCA, is an artist, curator, programmer, cultural critic, scholar, and public intellectual whose career spans more than four decades at the intersection of art, policy, and social change. Rooted in Fluxus thought, her practice moves across artistic production, writing, institution-building, and civic intervention, refusing neat divisions among them. She has helped shape cultural policy and public discourse in Canada, widening art’s place in public life. 

Verjee was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2023 and elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2025. In 2020, she received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for Outstanding Contribution. Her work has been recognized through multiple honorary doctorates, including one from Simon Fraser University. 

Co-founder of In Visible Colours in 1989 and Executive Director of Western Front from 1991 to 1999, Verjee has been recognized as a McLaughlin College Fellow and Senior Fellow of Massey College. Her artwork has been exhibitedinternationally, including at MoMA, the Venice Biennale, Asian Triennial Manchester, and the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, and is held in private and public collections, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, and Glenbow Museum.