ECHOS OF IRAN: A WOMXN’S TRIBUTE

Duran Mashaal is pleased to present Echos of Iran: A WomXn’s Tribute featuring the works of 6 Canadian-Iranian artists including Anahita Norouzi, Rojin Shafiei, Naz Rahbar, Hajar Moradi, Anahita Akhavan and Maryam Izadifard. With the perpetual struggle and hardships Iranian womXn currently endure within their country, this exhibition is an homage of womXn who have come to Canada with the opportunities to pursue their careers in the arts, but whose ties to their native homeland penetrate and are forefront in their practice. Co-curated by Shadan Saber, who is the founder of the Social Collective, a platform that foster’s and promotes Iranian artists, practicing in Iran and worldwide.

Rojin Shafiei’s video installation deals with the notions of inertia and the stoppage of time as experienced by an anonymous protagonist. The video explores the relative nature of time’s passage and troubles it’s conception as uniform and straightforward. Hajar Moradi invites visitors with her textile installation to have their stories woven into a traditional Iranian rug, symbolizing the coming together of humanity in harmony during a 3 weeks performance. By selecting the colour of their yarn, visitors reaffirm both their unique individuality and their trusting commitment to the whole – a powerful message for our world today.

In Anahita Akhavan’s paintings, her use of geometry is derived from personal nostalgia, interpreting Islamic tapestry and architecture through her bold canvases and a rich intuitive colour palette. With a focus on traditional abstract points used in secular and religious storytelling. Anahita Norouzi will present a combination of 2 multidisciplinary series that continue to explore the idea of dispora and displacement. Her practice is research-driven, instigated by marginalized histories and the legacies of botanical explorations and archeological excavations, particularly when scientific research became entangled in the colonial exploitation of non-Western geographies.

Maryam Izadifard continues to explore femininity in her newest painting series. The influence of the intimate and private environment or space is key to her understanding of the feminine condition. What makes her a woman? By analyzing these spaces, she explores the tensions between emptiness and occupation that they convey. When the human being is absent, is the private space truly empty?

Lastly, Naz Rahbar’s work is often narrative based, and explores the figure. Considering bodily identity as primarily relational through various concepts, such as body knowledge, body and land, bodies and borders and bodies as borders. Their large work entitled Crowd shows imagery of a crowd of people either coming together in celebration, grief or protest, which holds a lot of power. In these moments we are like trees in a dense forest, together and strongly rooted.

DURAN MASHAAL would like to thank Galerie Nicolas Robert for their collaboration.