Hajra Waheed: Hum II

For the first time since its debut at Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023), artist Hajra Waheed will be exhibiting her multi-channel sound installation Hum II in Bogotá, Colombia. The work will be presented as a unique and ambitious 32-channel outdoor sound experience, built into the colonial ruins and gardens that wrap around artist Doris Salcedo’s anti-monument—Fragmentos, Espacio de Arte y Memoria. 

Fragmentos is a living artwork, a place of memory and a space for artistic creation, realized by Salcedo in 2017. It consists of a floor made from nearly 37 tons of melted weapons handed over by the FARC-EP guerrilla, created with the participation of women victims of sexual violence during the armed conflict in Colombia. Having inverted the usual meaning of the monument, Salcedo conceived a space that seeks to build dialogues based on the ruptures created by war.

Hajra Waheed’s Hum, which translates to “We” in Urdu, is a series of unique musical compositions and multi-channel sound installations that explore the collective power of the human voice to transcend borders, unite across differences, and resist systems of oppression.  Hum II reflects specifically on the leadership of women in the struggles of working people, the marginalized, and the dispossessed, whose participation is rarely made visible, amplified or centered. This second volume features seven songs that have been central to popular uprisings, mass social movements and anti-colonial struggles in the Americas, Africa and Asia, where women have been at the forefront. Many of these songs and musical forms have either been suppressed or banned, but all are still widely sung today, preserved and passed down by women to new generations.

Hum II will be exhibited within the ruins and gardens of Fragmentos, marking the first time this revitalized space opens to the public and hosts an artwork. In Salcedo’s anti-monument, silence is not an absence but a force—bearing witness to the void left by war. As Hum II resonates through the exterior and spills into Fragmentos’ hushed interior, both engage in a profound dialogue on memory, resistance, and solidarity—where silence becomes a haunting echo of loss and sound an act of resilience. Together, the works forge connections between Colombia’s history and global struggles for liberation and justice. More than a site of reflection, here, Hum II becomes a space for active listening and gathering, where the voices of those who continue to shape these movements are recognized— and where collective memory emerges, as both an act of mourning and a gesture of hope.

Hum II, by Hajra Waheed, is presented by The Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Knowledges of Colombia; the National Museum of Colombia, and Fragmentos, Espacio de Arte y Memoria.

The exhibition will open on Saturday, May 24, 2025 from 11am to 5pm, and feature a conversation with the artist at 12pm.

About the artist
Hajra Waheed (b. 1980, Canada), currently lives and works between Montreal and Yogyakarta. Her multidisciplinary practice explores the ways in which power structures our lives, while addressing the trauma and alienation experienced by displaced people due to legacies of colonial and state violence. Characterized by a distinct visual language and unique poetic approach, her works often use the everyday to convey the profound and landscape as a vehicle for human struggle and a politics of resistance and resilience.

Recent exhibitions include: IMMA, Dublin (2024); Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi (2024); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2024); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2023); 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023); CAM St. Louis, Missouri (2023); State of Concept, Athens (2023); PHI Foundation, Montreal (2021); Portikus, Frankfurt (2020); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); 2nd Lahore Biennale (2020); British Museum, London (2019); The Power Plant, Toronto (2019); 57th Venice Biennale (2017); 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016); BALTIC, Gateshead (2016); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2015); La Biennale de Montréal (2014); Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, New York (2012) and Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2012).