Scrapbooks are time capsules compiled on the fly and jam-packed with personal mementoes. For Montreal artist\u00a0Hajra Waheed<\/a><\/strong>, it took decades to gather her thoughts and encapsulate them in a mixed media art work called The Scrapbook Project, part of her larger installation\u00a0Minutes from a Second Story,\u00a0<\/i>currently on view at Vancouver\u2019s\u00a0Centre A Gallery<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Waheed was born in Canada but spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia. Her father worked for ARAMCO, the Saudi oil company, and young Hajra grew up in a gated community exposed to two cultures, her westernised home life and the conservative Saudi one. It was a fluid period in the country\u2019s history. The Cold War had ended and the first Gulf War had not yet begun. The region was militarising and political tensions were rising.<\/p>\n Taking photographs was frowned upon and other than a few drawings Hajra made in her sketchbook, the young Canadian had no record of her stay. The Scrapbook Project is a reaction to that convention, a sort of belated family album. \u201cIt was during my most formative years,\u201d she says, \u201cthat I began studying this place with a discerning eye. I realized how critical it was to begin to make better sense of this rather strange lived experience.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Scrapbook Project<\/strong>\u00a0is a distinctive collection of images comprised of iconic magazine photos, collage, photo transfers and drawings. The Gallery has removed her individual pages, framed them and presented them in linear form which, when read in chronological order, create an evolutionary tale recalling both the pleasant memories of childhood and the paradoxical ones that became more apparent to her as she was growing up.. They are delicate miniatures but they pack a punch, idyllic California-type scenes, – the compound emulated a sunny California lifestyle – juxtaposed with helicopters, Mecca and Arabic script. Her scrapbook is both personal and historic.<\/p>\n