Exhibitions
Artist Statement
My artistic practice engages deeply with the intersections between Western art historical discourse and contemporary Arab visual culture, situating the body as a nuanced site of paradox, resistance, and cultural negotiation. My work critically examines the complicated legacy of colonial influence and historical strategies of identity reconstruction prevalent among immigrant and diasporic communities. This has been realised as the practice of name-changing during my career; framing name-changing as both an act of assimilation and a gesture of defiance.
Central to my work is an exploration of the aesthetics of displacement and memory prevalent within contemporary Arab art, explicitly addressing themes of migration and fragmented identity. Concurrently, my contemporary pieces have introduced a tension by embodying apparent ideals of aesthetic purity and formal beauty. Yet beneath their visual harmony, these works consistently challenge canonical norms by integrating narratives of migration, faith, hybrid identity, and belonging. This intentional layering critiques both personal hybridity and the broader political landscape regarding visibility and erasure experienced by Arab migrant identities within Western contexts.
2025 saw the establishment of my contemporary art business ScandArabian Art. This creative practice and company emerges through this lived background to create site responsive, spatial-design installations. Bringing contemporary art to new and reimagined locations. Rather than narrating individual identity within spaces, this practice distills it. Through reduced compositions, symbolic forms, and a controlled visual language, the installations translate individual festival experience into atmospheric collective immersive spatial interactions. Guided by my instinctual creative responses to spatial design and decades of experience, ScandArabian Art brings atmosphere into stillness, togetherness to individual experiences within space.
Biography
Mariam Haji (Maryam Aljanahi) is a Bahraini multidisciplinary artist based in Porvoo, Finland, and the founder of ScandArabian Art. Working across drawing, installation, sculpture, video, and painting, her practice explores atmosphere, cultural identity, symbolism, and the relationship between artwork and place.
She represented the Kingdom of Bahrain at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 after receiving Bahrain’s Dana Award in 2012 under the artist name Mariam Haji. In 2022, under the name Meri Helmi Särkkä, she became the first Arab artist to present a large-scale exhibition in Helsinki Cathedral. Her work has since been exhibited internationally, including at the Bahrain National Museum and Suomenlinna Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Today, working under the artist name Mariam Haji, she leads ScandArabian Art while continuing her contemporary artistic practice through exhibitions, artist talks, and international collaborations. Her work is held in permanent public collections, including the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China (Voice of Rain) and the National Theatre of Bahrain (Victory).
Portfolio
Liberty
In this reinterpretation, Liberty is no longer a symbol of political emancipation but of divine surrender.
Victory
Victory reinterprets Henri Regnault’s Automedon with the Horses of Achilles through the lens of an Arab woman, replacing the male hero with a composite self-portrait embodying historical heroines from East and West.
Voice of Rain
Voice of Rain emerged through an unexpected collaboration between the artist and natural forces, as rainfall transformed the surface of the work.
Premonition
Premonition reclaims the female figure from the idealized roles of Renaissance painting, repositioning her as an active and mortal protagonist.