2025 Halifax Art Festival Judges

Unum Babar

Unum Babar received her BFA in Visual Art with distinction and a Postgraduate Diploma in Art Education from Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan. Subsequently, she received an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013 as a Fulbright Scholar, where the Boston Globe featured her as one of Boston’s rising young artists. Her practice spans across many different media, from video installation and photography to drawing, attempting a language where the process of making becomes the content of the work itself. She has exhibited in Pakistan, the US, UK, India, South Korea and Canada, and has works in collections including the Devi Art Foundation in Delhi and a permanent public art installation within the historic Lawrence Gardens of Lahore. In the past, she has served as an Assistant Professor and Program Head Foundation Studies Department at School of Visual Art and Design, BNU, Lahore.  Unum recently relocated to the USA and will be continuing her teaching at Daytona State College, Florida, as well as her studio practice currently exploring the intersection of drawing and alternative photographic techniques.

Jetshri Bhadviya 

Jetshri Bhadviya is a curator, educator, designer, and new media artist whose work explores the dynamic relationship between the body, space, and perception. Working across video, sound, performance, and photography, she investigates how bodies interact with environments and how these experiences are shaped by cultural, historical, and personal influences. Her practice often embraces surreal, unstructured, and performative expressions of the body.

She holds an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in Studio Arts from American University in Dubai. Since 2015, Bhadviya has taught at the College for Creative Studies and Oakland University in Michigan. She previously worked as a Curatorial Assistant in the Contemporary Department at the Detroit Institute of Arts and served on the curatorial committee at the Detroit Artist Market, where she developed exhibitions focused on themes of identity and community engagement.

In addition to her academic and curatorial work, Bhadviya has served as Arts and Cultural Commissioner for the City of Hamtramck, Michigan. Her diverse experience also includes work as a freelance designer, photographer, and instructor in Dubai, UAE.

Her artwork has been featured in exhibitions at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Kresge Arts Foundation, David Klein Gallery, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and various venues across Dubai. She was named one of Dubai’s top ten artists by the Sheikha Manal Young Artist Foundation (2011) and received the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship Award in Michigan (2015).