About
Driving Canada is an oral history exhibition produced by Qissa in partnership with the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 and the Toronto Ward Museum, with support from Digital Museums Canada.
Qissa (قصّہ) means 'story' in Urdu and Punjabi. Founded in 2020 by Anam Zakaria and Haroon Khalid, Qissa began as an artist collective collecting oral histories of different diasporic communities in Canada.
Qissa amplifies the voices of immigrant communities across Canada, documenting the lived experiences of newcomers navigating the complexities of credential recognition, underemployment, and economic survival in their adopted homeland.
Our approach
In October 2024, we conducted in-depth life-history interviews with Uber drivers and family members. Each interview lasted approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes, following a semi-structured questionnaire divided into three main categories: Life before coming to Canada, The process of coming to Canada, and Life in Canada.
Interview model: Life-history model using semi-structured questionnaire.
Credits
Qissa
Producer · Interviews
Anam Zakaria
Haroon Khalid
CMI at Pier 21
Lead partner · Oral history
Emily Burton, Oral Historian
Toronto Ward Museum
Fiscal sponsor · Guidance
Project guidance and archival support
Digital Museums Canada
Funder
Investment programme support
Canada Council
for the Arts
Funder
Project funding
Ontario Arts Council
Funder
Project funding
Toronto Arts Council
Funder
Project funding
The Drivers
Participants
Kulbir Singh Bhullar, Mehakjot Singh, Yalgar Singh, Mohd Javed Khokar, Rammah Mohammad, Niharika Aggarwal
Project team
Anam Zakaria
Co-Founder, Qissa | Interviewer
Haroon Khalid
Co-Founder, Qissa | Interviewer
Feedback
This exhibition is a work in progress. If you have a response, a correction, or a story of your own, we want to hear it.