Shirin Abu Shaqra was born in Doha in 1978 to a Lebanese father and a Syrian mother. She lived in Montreal, Alexandria, Istanbul and Cairo. She has a Lebanese and a Canadian nationality. She currently resides in Beirut.
Shirin received her MFA with honors in 2010 from the Fresnoy, National Studio for Contemporary Arts in France. Before entering the artistic field, Shirin finished a master in History (2004) and a Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (DEA) in Political Science (2006) in Saint Joseph University Beirut (USJ). She worked for eight years researching socio-cultural changes in the Arab world at the Centre for Modern Arab Studies (CEMAM – USJ) where she published several academic articles.
To date, she has made four films, including the poetic essay “Hold on, My Glamorous” (34’) which won the best film award at the Lebanese Film Festival in 2009 and two short animation films: “Walking Distance” (2008) and “Conversations with Change” (2010).
Shirin does also 'musical voyages' for exhibitions. She is also a member of the research group on Ahmad Fares al Shidyaq initiated by the historian Fawwaz Traboulsi.
Her work has been shown in Beirut, Paris, Dubai, Munich, Melbourne, Minnesota, Brussels, London, Scotland, Cuba…She is currently working on her first feature film. |
