Professor, Visual Arts
- 1983 MFA in Visual Arts from the University of Houston
- 1979 B.A. in Fine Arts from the City University of New York Baccalaureate Program, with Brooklyn College as home school
John Halaka’s work investigates narrative of cultural survival and political resistance in colonized and diasporic communities. His drawings, paintings, photographs, oral history archives, and documentary films visualize the tensions between the emotional presence and physical absence of populations whose cultures have been devastated by the violent intrusions of settler colonialism. Halaka’s artwork is produced as a result of extended personal engagements with marginalized communities and is designed to provide an arena for both the participants and the viewers to meditate on survival and resistance as conditions that shape the life experiences of displaced populations.
Several of Halaka’s projects have been informed by the personal narratives of Palestinian refugees. His current project investigates the existential crisis that is being increasingly imposed on Palestinian farmers, through the colonial expropriation of their agricultural lands, the theft of their water resources and the undermining of their distribution systems and commercial markets.
John Halaka is a Professor of Visual Arts, and has taught at the University of San Diego since 1991. He received his MFA in the Visual Arts from the University of Houston in 1983, and his BA in Fine Arts from the City University of New York Baccalaureate Program, with Brooklyn College as home school.
To view a broad selection of John Halaka’s artwork, please visit his websites: www.johnhalaka.com / www.sittingcrowproductions.com