Bushra Junaid facts for kids

Bushra Junaid is a talented Canadian artist. She is also a curator, which means she helps organize art shows. Bushra lives in Toronto. She is famous for her art that explores history, memories, and cultural identity. She uses different art forms like collage, drawing, and painting.

Bushra was born in Montreal. Her parents came from Jamaica and Nigeria. She grew up in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Her art often talks about Black history, the African diaspora (people of African origin living outside Africa), and the history of Atlantic Canada.

Her artwork has been shown in many places across Canada. These include art galleries and special art centers. Bushra also illustrated a children's book called Nana's Cold Days. Her art has been displayed at places like Harbourfront Centre and the Toronto Reference Library.

In 2020, Bushra Junaid organized an art show at The Rooms. It was called "What Carries Us: Newfoundland and Labrador in the Black Atlantic."

Amazing Artworks

Two Pretty Girls (2016)

Bushra Junaid wanted to show the connection between Newfoundland and the Caribbean. So, she helped create a project called New-Found-Lands. This art show took place at the Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John's in 2016.

One of Bushra's artworks in the show was Two Pretty Girls. For this piece, Bushra and her sister recreated an old photo. The original photo was from the 1800s and showed two unnamed women who worked on a plantation.

Bushra said that she sees these women as her ancestors. By making the image bigger, she wanted it to feel like a family photo. She wanted to bring these women from the past right into the present day. Two Pretty Girls was also shown at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in 2018. It was also part of an exhibition called Like Sugar at the Tang Teaching Museum in 2019.

Sweet Childhood (2017)

In 2018, Bushra Junaid's artwork Sweet Childhood was shown at the Royal Ontario Museum. It was part of an exhibition called Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art. This show featured art from nine Canadian artists. They explored ideas about race, belonging, and what it means to be Black in Canada.

For Sweet Childhood, Bushra used an old photo from 1903. It was a stereoview (a type of 3D photo) of children in a Caribbean sugarcane field. Bushra made it feel like a family portrait. The artwork includes old photographs and text printed on a special lit-up fabric panel. This exhibit later traveled to the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Nana's Cold Days

Bushra Junaid also illustrated a children's book called Nana's Cold Days. The book was written by Adwoa Badoe. Bushra created colorful collages for the book. Some of these collages include pieces cut from photos of the sky, fruit, or faces.