Zahra Haider

Zahra Haider is a multidisciplinary designer, writer, and feminist researcher from Islamabad, Pakistan, based in Montréal. Rooted in decolonial feminisms, she combines her expertise in Women’s Studies and UX Design to build accessible digital spaces and community archives that reclaim histories, centre marginalized voices, and challenge state power and colonial legacies.

Haider has been featured on BBC, CNN, CBC, Deutsche Welle, Dawn News, Foreign Policy, VICE World News, and others, sparking conversations around class, gender, sexuality, and women’s trauma in Pakistan and the diaspora. Her short story, Ajrak and Ashes, was shortlisted for the 2025 Zeenat Haroon Rashid Writing Prize.

Black and white promotional poster featuring a woman with dark, shoulder-length hair and hoop earrings. Text details the event 'SVAD TALK' by Zahra Haider, scheduled for November 27, 2025, from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm, an online class on 'Decolonial Feminisms' at BNU.
A white cloth with a black grid pattern, folded and lying on a white surface.

Haider has facilitated writing workshops at the Centre for Gender Advocacy at Concordia University, the School of Visual Art and Design at Beaconhouse National University, and in Montréal’s Parc-Ex community. Her upcoming workshop will be on March 15, 2026 in Montréal at the Représent Conference.

She is the Québec Lead of the South Asian Social Justice Network, at the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians. She is a member of the Quebec Writers’ Federation and runs the Substack ZERO POINT and podcast Armpit Intellectuals.

Select Writings

Ajrak and Ashes, shortlisted for the Zeenat Haroon Rashid Writing Prize, November 2025.

Let down by Pride parade organizers, queer communities took charge. Op-ed for CBC News, October 2022.

On embracing the hyphen and hybridity of language, DAWN News, March 2019.

Culture Belongs to No One, for Montréal Serai Magazine, October 2024.

Slowness is Healing, She Does The City, September 2022.

Sexual Violence and the Hypermasculine Nation State, Naya Daur, September 2020.

Scroll.in Four novels set in Pakistan for those torn between nations, languages and identities July 2019. Originally published on DAWN as A Search for Identity: Pakistani literature as a lifeline and re-published on The Wire.

Select Media & Press

Patriarchy and Colonialism in South Asia, International Solidarity Podcast, September 2025.

Are young voters happy with what they’ve heard during Québec’s election campaign? Panelist on CBC News, September 2022.

Deutsche Welle’s Melissa Chan interviews Zahra Haider on the sexual violence crisis in Pakistan following Noor Mukadam's murder. August 2021.

How a Beheading Triggered a Flood of Sexual Assault Accusations Against Rich Young Men. Interview with VICE World News, September 2021.

Cancel Culture & Sex-Ed, Propergaanda podcast episode 22, September 2020.

An account on the Background of Zahir Jaffer and Noor Mukadam. Interview for TCM Originals, July 2021.

Select Projects

Interactive prototype demo via Figma. Explore the FRA Digital Map.

Traditional archives are often static and gate-kept. I designed the Feminist Research Archive to transform Pakistan’s feminist histories from stagnant PDFs into an interactive, community-driven experience. By blending geospatial mapping with participatory architecture, this platform bridges the gap between academic research and public activism. This project sits at the intersection of gender advocacy and human-centered design, ensuring the labour of past generations remains accessible and actionable for the next.

Podcast: Armpit Intellectuals Co-hosted with Bilal

In Armpit Intellectuals, Bilal and I continue our journey of pulling theory out of the abstract and into the lived realities of resistance. In this episode, We Sinful Women, we delve into the radical evolution of Urdu feminist poetry, a genre that transformed an elite courtly language into a sharp weapon of the people [02:46]. We explore the defiant legacies of poets like Kishwar Naheed and Fahmida Riaz, who used their verses to dismantle the oppressive weight of the Zia-ul-Haq regime and challenge deeply entrenched patriarchal norms [03:57]. From the chilling metaphors of unrecorded tyranny to the bold reclamation of female eroticism and agency, we examine how these "sinful" voices prove that even when the body is caged, the mind remains a terrifying frontier of freedom [08:42]. This episode acts as a poetic extension of the Feminist Research Archive, reminding us that our most vital histories are often written in the ink of defiance.

Commissioned by the student unions of McGill and Concordia Universities, School Schmool is a multidisciplinary publication bridging organizational utility with radical community activism. As Design Lead, I directed the end-to-end production of the 200+ page 2024-2025 agenda, navigating the transition from conceptual 'Resistance' themes I had chosen and assigned, to a physical product distributed to thousands of students across Montréal.

I managed a diverse team of contributors to curate art, writing, and essential social justice resources, ensuring the final piece served as both a functional tool and a site of decolonial archive-building. This project highlights my expertise in synthesizing complex, research-heavy information into accessible, high-impact print design and digital-ready assets.