Born in New York in 1971, lives and works in Vancouver. Since 2001 Adad Hannah has been working on his series Stills consisting of silent videos that exist at the intersection of performance, photography, and video. Based on the 19th-century practice of tableaux vivants, Hannah’s videos, photographs, and installations look at how we perform as spectators, and how our gaze can be a constructive one as we try to make sense of ourselves and the world around us.
He has exhibited at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2008), the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2008), Zendai MoMA, Shanghai (2009), Ke Center for Contemporary Art (Shanghai 2008), the Vancouver Art Gallery (2007), the National Gallery of Canada (2011, 2006), Ikon Gallery (Birmingham 2006), the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale (2006), Casa Encendida (Madrid 2006) and Viper Basel (2004). In 2004 he won the Toronto Images Festival Installation/New Media Award, and the Bogdanka Poznanovic Award at Videomedeja 8. His work has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the B.C Arts Council, the Vancouver Foundation/Contemporary Art Gallery, the Quebec Delegations and Canadian Embassies in Madrid, Seoul, and New York. He has produced works at museums including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Rodin Gallery (Seoul), and the Prado Museum (Madrid).
Hannah’s work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Ke Center for Contemporary Art (Shanghai), the Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw), BMO Financial Group and the Royal Bank of Canada.