Born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, Syrian Canadian artist Hiyam Mahrat was used to a desert environment, but when she and her family moved to Canada in 2018, she quickly developed an appreciation for green spaces.
“I did not think that I would fall in love with nature the way that I did when I came here,” Mahrat said. “There’s just something about being in trees, waking up to the sounds of birds. That’s why I’m now camping every summer.”
We met in Bechtel Park to walk the trails, embarking on a hike by the water and ending on a bench next to the playground as we talked about Mahrat’s journey to the Waterloo Region and her artistic career.
She arrived in Canada with a degree in medical laboratory science but found the bureaucracy of getting her credentials recognized laborious.
After her sister suggested a performing arts program at Sheridan College, Mahrat decided to pursue her interest in theatre and discovered a love of acting.
While she loved the program and performing, what came after was a challenge for Mahrat to navigate.
“I would apply for stuff, but I wouldn’t hear back, especially in Toronto,” she said. “I [found] some challenges in auditioning, finding roles that fit me.”
Mahrat and her family were living in Ajax at that time, but her sister had connections to the theatre community in Kitchener-Waterloo and facilitated introductions. Mahrat began volunteering with MT Space, and a conversation with the company’s founder Majdi Bou-Matar in 2021 shaped the direction of Mahrat’s artistic practice.
“He told me about his challenges of going into the theatre community,” Mahrat said. “He did not get the chance to do the work he wanted until he recognized he needed to create his own opportunities…that really clicked in my mind.”
From there, Mahrat focused on building her own project and seeking funding and collaborators to support the work. She went from volunteering with MT Space to working as an administrative assistant before finally landing in her current role as General Manager. In 2023, she convinced her entire family to move to Kitchener-Waterloo. That same year, she won the Waterloo Region Emerging Artist Award.
The trail took us over a bridge to nowhere and we paused to appreciate the surroundings and the creek while Mahrat told me about Homecoming, a piece she created with Ameya Kale exploring the immigrant experience and housing issues in the Region.
“What does it mean to create a home while you are still facing challenges in finding a house or a place to call home?” Mahrat said. “We tied the housing crisis to colonization…how that affected high prices and inflation, causing suffering.”
Mahrat began exploring these ideas in 2022, and kept developing the work, including exploring the perspective of landlords as well as tenants. Under the guidance of director and mentor Nada Humsi, she and Kale unlocked a more physical interpretation of the text. In 2025, the piece was presented at MT Space’s Works-In-Progress Mini Festival, and Mahrat is looking at further development and touring.
“The journey of creating something over multiple years [is] powerful, and it’s something you cannot just leave and move away from,” Mahrat said. “It stays with you…and it’s part of you.”
The year 2025 also saw Mahrat tackle directing a full-length production for the first time. She pitched the play Scorched by Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad and it was accepted into the KWLT’s season with Mahrat at the helm. The play was one she first encountered in her program at Sheridan.
“The script has always been in my mind,” Mahrat said. “I had a burning passion for it, and I had to do it.”
Passion is a guiding principle for Mahrat who believes in the connection between community and artist, and that each has a responsibility for the other. And for Mahrat, her identity as a newcomer remains at the forefront of her work.
“All of my art now…talks about the war, colonization, my immigration journey, my journey as a woman of colour who wears the hijab and acts,” Mahrat said. “But I do wish to reach some point where I can talk about my internal struggles…I feel like we don’t have the luxury to do that.”
The wind picked up as we finished our walk and Mahrat told me about some of her favourite camping locations. As well as planning time in nature, Mahrat also wants to explore bringing dance into her work.
“I’m interested in the intersectionality of dance,” she said. “How dance can be a resistance tool, and a way of preserving culture.”
Whatever the artistic medium, Hiyam Mahrat will continue to challenge, reflect, resist and above all persist as she creates and builds art and community in the Waterloo Region.
Leave a Reply