Deena Qabazard is a Kuwaiti-American interdisciplinary artist. She blends photography, textiles, performance and dance in installations that experiment with the nature of the body, breath, and mortality. Her experience living alternately between California and Kuwait imbues her work with strange familiarity, accentuates her hyphenated identity, and evokes the body in motion across shifting landscapes.
My motive is blurring the lines between what is unsightly, unsettling and what is transcendent and beautiful.
Education.
Master of Fine Arts, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Bachelor of Arts, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA. Interdisciplinary studies in the arts. Visual arts, sculpture.
Awards/Scholarships/Residencies.
2024-2025 AIR Makaan Arts, Minnesota Street Project Studios, San Francisco, CA
2024 Mentored Teaching Fellow, Photography Program, California College of the Arts
2024 AIR Recology, San Francisco, CA
2024 MFA Thesis prize winner
2024 George B. Saxe Scholarship
2024 Belle grantee
2023 Kaiser Permanente Scholarship
2022 Bryon Meyer Scholarship
Exhibitions.
2025 Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA. Recology 35th anniversary
2025 - Minnesota Street Project Foundation, San Francisco, CA. Membranes - Solo (Makaan residency)
2025 Headlands Center of the Arts, Sausalito, CA. Unmoored by Makaan Arts,
2025 MSP Foundation Studios. San Francisco, CA. Aknoon at Makaan
2024 SFO Museum, San Francisco, CA. Here and Home
2024 Root Division, San Francisco, CA. Introductions
2024 Recology, San Francisco, CA. guide my hands, so i can see you
2024 Casemore Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Mane 'n Tail
2024 Wattis Institute, San Francisco, CA. CCA MFA Thesis Exhibition
2023 ICA SF, San Francisco, CA. Mutability Stalls -solo
2023 Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Between Friends
2023 El Cerrito, CA. Toda Se Transforma
2023 Bass & Reiner, San Francisco, CA. Pyramid Scheme.
2022 California College of the Arts, San Francisco, New Look
2021 XP Music Futures. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Created Abandon - an experimental art space for event
2020 Asiento, San Francisco. Eclectic
2018 The Hub, Kuwait. Abolish 153
2016 JAMM Art Gallery, Dubai. Abolish 153
2016 Sunflower Theatre, Beirut, Lebanon.
2015 Dar Al Funoon, Kuwait. Distorted Realities
2015 The Mine, Dubai. Post-Oriental Odyssey
2014 Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait. Per|Form , Live group & individual performances.
2014 Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait. Stitching Cyborgs.
2013 Bait Lothan, Kuwait. “Waraq” (Paper), Curated by Visual Therapy.
2013 Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait. “Peace One Day.”
2013 FA Gallery, Kuwait. “I am spring”
2012 Gallery Tilal, Kuwait. Art Mania.
2012 Swift Louge, Portland OR. “Lighthearted.” Light Installation.
2011 FA Gallery, Kuwait. Without Boundaries.
2011 Pushkar, India. Mural.
2010 Ghadir Gallery, Kuwait. A small painting with a big heart.
2009 K Records Warehouse, Olympia WA. Earthy, Unearthly, Unearthed: the work of twenty-two object makers.
2008 Empty space, Olympia WA. Mitosis
2008 K Records Warehouse, Olympia WA. What with Hands
2007 K Records Warehouse, Olympia WA. Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic
Performances.
2024 Recology, San Francisco. Adorning our barriers - Duo
2015 The Mine, Dubai. “Internal Landscape.”
2014 Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait. “Internal Landscape.”
Art Administration & Teaching.
2025 - Current Teaching Fellow, Photography program, teaching Tools 2, intro to digital, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2025- Current- Member of the Student Advisory Board for the Recology A.I.R. program, San Francisco, CA.
2025 - Current - Darkroom Photography Instructor - First Exposures, San Francisco, CA
2025 - Current - Teaching, minimizing waste, preserving resources to children and adults, leading tours, art installation, assisting the AIR program at Recology, San Francisco, CA.
2024 - Teaching Fellow, Photography program, teaching Tools 1 class: Intro to black and white photography, Darkroom, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2024 - Graduate Teaching Assistant for Professor Nelson Chan’s Photo Investigations 2 Sequencing and Context. California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2023 - Graduate Teaching Assistant for Professor Nelson Chan’s Tool 1 class: Intro to black and white photography. California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2021 - Created yoga and art retreat by Sequoia National Park, CA.
2014 Freelance work with Contemporary Art Platform Kuwait teaching workshops on art, dance and yoga.
2013 - 2014 Contemporary Art Platform Kuwait.
Portrait by Saundra Conneely