Simranpreet Kaur Anand

About

Emboldened by an interest in material memory, Simranpreet Kaur Anand has produced a new commission located across two locations: Terminal 1 at Pearson International Airport and here in the windowed facade of Harbourfront Centre. Anand’s work questions the proximity of capitalism to enlightenment. Her brightly coloured LED signs offer tongue-in-cheek representations of the types of signs used as advertisements by stores selling religious goods or spiritual objects. Her motifs include a stylized diamond emerging from the word “enlightenment,” hands clasped in prayer with the phrase “illumination seek no further” written below and a manicured hand holding a flower ensconced by a circle, with the words “find” and “yourself” above and below.

Converting text through phonetic similarity as opposed to actual translation — a language-learning process known as transliteration — Anand developed ਧਾਰਮਿਕ ਸੱਪਲਾਈ (dharmik supply) (2024). When translated to English, it reads “religious supply.” For Anand, this blending of Punjabi and English underscores the hybrid cultural identities and linguistic intermingling common within Punjab and its diasporas. The LED signs are installed with an orientation toward audiences on a journey and consider the interplay of light over time, with the flashing words and phrases satirizing the idea that purchasing an object can offer spiritual awakening.

Co-presented by the Toronto Biennial of Art and Harbourfront Centre and made possible with the generous support of RBC, Eleanor and Francis Shen and the Women Leading Initiative.

About Simranpreet Anand

Photo by artist.

Simranpreet Anand is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and cultural worker creating and working between the traditional territories of the Kalapuya people (Eugene, OR) and the un-ceded territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie and Semiahmoo peoples (Surrey, BC). Informed by family and community, her artistic practice engages materials and concepts drawn from Punjab and the Punjabi diaspora while attending to their histories, circulation and the seen/unseen labour held within them. She gives particular care to material culture, ancestral craft practice(s), archival histories and their disruption by colonialism and neoliberal capitalism.

Anand’s artistic and scholarly work is built on archival, ethnographic and material research alongside community engagement. Notable projects include her touring exhibition sheeshe ‘ch tharer | a crack in the mirror (The Reach Gallery; Peel Art Museum; Nelson Museum, Archives & Gallery; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria), Foreign Dreams (Workers Arts & Heritage Centre, 2024) and Living with the Eternal (Stamps Gallery, 2024; Polygon Gallery, 2026). Her published work on Sikh visual culture appears in Sikh Formations (2026). For her artistic and community-based work, Anand has been the recipient of awards including the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award (2021), the Philip B Lind Prize (2022) and the 2024 MLK Spirit Award at the University of Michigan.

Anand holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of Michigan and a BFA with Honours from the University of British Columbia. She is Visual Arts Faculty at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR where she spends her free time as an active member of the Eugene Climbers of Color.