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.

Based on the oral history interviews of five rideshare drivers, conducted by Qissa in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, all the stories follow a life-history model, giving an in-depth lens into the lives of these individuals, including their educational, professional and familial background, their motivation to immigrate, the immigration process, settlement challenges in Canada, experience of working in the gig-economy, and so much more.

Using gig-work as an entry point, Driving Canada: A Digital Exhibition highlights the systemic under-employment that racialized newcomers and refugees experience in 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.