In Conversation with Laveen Gammie

Architectures of power, green-screen-green, and the politics of In/visibility

Laveen Gammie, Interface (Installation view). Photo Credit: Kyra Kordoski.

By Dani Neira

Last autumn, I began stealing loose breeze blocks, the cement building bricks with decorative designs carved out. You can find them stacked precariously outside of houses, creating partitions between the sidewalk and a parking lot, or perhaps as a stand-alone wall. There is a common design that resembles the geometric right angles of a camera’s viewfinder or increasingly ornamental and asymmetrical compositions. I am drawn to how the blocks shape my vision, how their negative spaces carve out slices of blue sky, and how I can catch someone’s eye through their moss-lined craters. 

Around this time, I listened to a podcast episode where Legacy Russell talks about the digital as an architecture, a space where massive corporations aim to control our “viewfinders.” Like the breeze block, algorithms frame what we see, simultaneously revealing and redacting information. Yet, both physical and digital structures can be torn down or defied. Perhaps my wayward collecting of breezeblocks was enacting some small form of rebellion. The mutability of these architectures offers possibilities and ways of slipping through systems that rely on legibility, classification, and censorship. We can understand censorship in this larger context as the suppression of information that is considered a threat to the hegemonic order. This censorship is sometimes literal, such as Canadians not being able to access news on social media platforms or the shadowbanning of pro-Palestinian voices. It is also insidiously embedded as racial and gender biases within technologies purported as neutral. 

While I was pondering breeze blocks, artist Laveen Gammie was looking at green-screen-green, and we were both reading Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell. I first came across Laveen’s installation-based exploration of “green-screen-green” in The Meet Up earlier this year. I’ll note here that Laveen and I are good friends, having met through a virtual studio visit back in 2020. Laveen’s practice is critical, playful, and deliciously material, and I return to it often. Her inquiry into green screens appears in Interface as an immersive space through painting the walls and floor, while in The Meet Up, it takes form in the painted platforms that host ladders and balloons. Both bodies of work interrogate how worldviews are projected upon the green screen and within the process of chroma-keying; the post-production technique of removing a green or blue background and replacing it with a different image.

DN: Many of your recent works, including your installation Interface at Open Space and exhibition The Meet Up at Fortune Gallery, have incorporated “green-screen-green. What drew you to explore green-screen-green, particularly in these physical, material ways?

LG: I was thinking about the invisibility of world-making. In my current work, I’m continuing to look at the idea of reification, or how we impose socially-created meaning on objects. As I was considering how worlds were built, a lot of that came down to film, the images, and the technology we consume. That’s how I came to the green screen, but going deeper, I wanted to ask,  why or how are we chroma-keying? This interest is built on it being something we use because it’s “unlike us,” it’s Other, and we use that colour to then project our own worlds. In that way, the green screen as Other is the sort of labour that never gets recognized. I became interested in the physicality of green-screen-green as a physical object. I wanted to give it recognition for its ability to create worlds and be projected onto. And I just love the colour. I love chroma key green. 

DN: When I first saw your green screen platforms, I was immediately drawn to the colour. Then it got me thinking about the physical object that is the green screen and how we don’t usually see it in a pre-production state.

LG: Exactly. We had to assign each other readings for class, and my classmate picked this reading that was a complete game changer. It’s called “Speech, Writing, Code, Three Worldviews,” by Katherine Hayles. It talks about the use of language as a form of power and how, in the past, restricting who has access to knowing how to utilize language has been a form of power dynamics (withholding power, obtaining power, and perpetuating power). Code has become a form of language that perpetuates power. Who has access to understand that language? Code is an approximation of so many things in our everyday life, meaning you can’t encapsulate everything. And I was like, holy shit, green-screen-greening is also an approximation of a worldview, and the power is held in the person that can project their fantasy or their ideas into the world they’re building. 

DN:  I feel like that also really ties into the idea of censorship or the suppression of information as a power dynamic. Going back to the invisibility of the green screen, I feel like it’s often forgotten that there are humans behind code and algorithms and that there’s no neutrality to technological tools.

LG: I feel like that, too, becomes a redaction. What has been left out of this seemingly finalized world that we are seeing?

DN: Yeah. I was thinking a lot about Legacy Russell’s text Glitch Feminism, where she states that the separation between the digital and the “real world” no longer exists. It made me consider how your work makes the green screen visible, what it means to make the production stage visible, and how that could be considered an “error.” How are you thinking about the conditions of in/visibility in your practice?

LG: The aspect of making the seemingly invisible, made visible, is something I’m still considering. I think green-screen-green is representative of a collaborative process. You need people, you need labour to build worlds, you need this green-screen-green backdrop, you need this sense of Other to create worlds. So bringing that into the context of the gallery and showcasing this form of world-making in its production stages, for me at least, showcases an aspect of labour, what it took to make the context for the objects that then sit on these platforms. Another thing that came up this week for me is what constitutes labour and making. Helen Molesworth brought this up in their recent talk, and it’s been lingering for me.

Laveen Gammie, Social Ladder, wood, green-screen-green paint, acrylic paint, disco ball, 2023. Courtesy of artist.

DN: Your exhibition, The Meet Up, is all about labour and who might have a place in the white-collar meeting or at the top of a corporate ladder…I’m reminded of Legacy’s thoughts on digital architectures. We have these big corporations like Instagram or TikTok which, through their algorithms, are attempting to be invisible in many ways while directly shaping our worldviews and what we consume. I’m also thinking about the relationship of that stage [The Meet Up] to the objects that you placed on top of them and the materials used, the painted ladders, yarn, balloons, and the associations these objects have.

LG: It brings me back to the text “Speech, Writing, Code,” because they approximate everything, they control everything. We just don’t see it. And what we do see is only the tip of the iceberg. In Canada, we can’t see the news, we know that. But there are so many things that are being coded, deleted, hidden, and controlled. The stages and performance bring me back to Legacy’s work, with this idea of gender performance and prescribed roles. Her book has been a game changer for me because I think about the prescribed role of everything. 

The Meet Up is about placing something as simple as a ladder in conversation with green-screen-green. The ladder has truck nuts at the top, and the title is Corporate Ladder. I’d like to think that it challenges the performance of climbing a corporate ladder. I’m commenting on it being a male-dominated industry, but the actual act of climbing a ladder we can all understand. Ladder climbing, in conversation with the idea of labour, brings up questions of who is at the top of the ladder. Who’s climbing or striving to climb the ladder?  What does that performance look like? What does it mean to be at the top? What does it mean to be at the bottom? And balloons as objects are interesting because they’re fleeting, they’re always dying, changing, floating…they’re never going to be the same. I think using balloons became a humorous way of commenting on darker things. Also bringing in the concept of necropolitics by Achille Mbembe, I’m thinking about who has the power to prescribe roles and to stage context. Balloons have a life and death, like us. So it’s also about who has the power to be/hold life or hold people in a place of death. I was thinking, how do I deal with social contexts and labour, while also dealing with this aspect of death and control?

Laveen Gammie, The Meeting, wood, metal, monks cloth, balloons, latex, plastic, yarn, 2023. 
Courtesy of artist.

DN: I love how your work utilizes everyday objects people can connect to. I’m sure everyone has memories and feelings attached to balloons whether through celebrations or get-well balloons. One of my favourite parts of that work was witnessing the balloons at any given time; some had deflated to the floor, while others were still fully inflated or hanging mid-way. In relation to my own body, some of them moved when I did, and others didn’t at all. 

LG: Yeah… there’s an immediacy to them. I move, they move. I come back, they’re not the same. I’m not the same. What does that mean? I very much could have kept pumping them up. But no, you have one life, and you will live out your life in the exhibition space. The balloons being disco balls were also a direct commentary on who gets to enjoy leisure and who has the waged labour of upkeeping leisure for others. 

Laveen Gammie, Interface (Installation view). Photo Credit: Kyra Kordoski.

DN: I also wanted to talk about technological biases because that’s very tied to the technique of chroma-keying, which has historically used whiteness as a universal template. There are so many biases embedded in tools like AI, facial recognition, or cameras that are designed to properly expose white skin tones. Chroma-keying has this history where green and blue were decided to be the most “different” from white skin tones specifically. It’s interesting to see how artists are appropriating its language to question the cultural values imposed in their creation. When I started looking into chroma-keying, I re-watched Hito Steyerl’s How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational . MOV File, where she proposes blending into these green screens as a way of countering hyper-visibility…Who were you looking at when you were researching green screens? 

LG: I think I was taking a film course at the time. We had just watched Get Out by Jordan Peele, and I was looking at the way they used film to comment on the racist tropes that have existed in film and technology. I then came to green-screen-green because a student at UVic, Rebecca Fux, had made this hyper-realistic painting of their friends where the background is all green screen. It has this glitch moment where not all moments of the painting are complete. I was also exposed to Sondra Perry’s work, Lineage for a Multiple-Monitor Work-station: Number One; their family is doing something completely nuclear family, just having dinner, but they’re all wearing [green] balaclavas. So, I was thinking about this prescription of violence that’s imposed on the Other, and it was a rabbit hole from there considering the connotations of green-screen-green and technology as a whole. What are the biases already embedded into the code itself, and who is the power holder in this language? 

DN: OK, to wrap this up… what are you working on or looking into right now?

LG: I’m thinking about unquestioned ritual and museums’ roles in slicing through and reducing ideas of ritual through an aestheticization of objects. That’s where I’m at right now. And…Bling Era. [Both laugh] Preciousness, adornment, what gets dismissed.

You can find more of Laveen Gammie’s work on her website.

This feature can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

Farewell Likely General: An Interview with Brooke Manning

Brooke Manning hanging the GenderFail shirt in the announcement post on social media. Photo by Tanja Tiziana, originally for Now Magazine.

By Ashley Culver

On August 13, 2023, Brooke Manning posted to Likely General’s Instagram account a closing announcement. It included a photo of her hanging a GenderFail t-shirt with the text ‘Radical Softness as a Boundless Form of Resistance’ in the storefront window along with five slides of a letter Manning penned sharing her decision rationale, gratitude, reminiscing about the beginning, and outlining her vision for the final two months. “Nothing lasts forever,” she writes, “and that’s what makes everything we touch in life so very remarkable.”

For a decade, Manning tended to Likely General, the independent “artist-focused shop and gallery primarily supporting the expressions of 300+ queer and marginalized artists.” She opened the small business, located at 389 Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto, in 2013. Later, she began programming a gallery space in the back of the rectangular shop. Likely General grew into a hub of activity with workshops, events, book launches, lectures, and gallery openings unique to the space and the people it attracted, such as poly-potlucks, annual kids art show, iridology, and tarot readings. In a move counter to the capitalist nature of running a business, Likely General donated to numerous local non-profits and activist groups, proving Manning was guided by her own goals and dreams, eager to root into the community.

I met Manning along with her dog, Jane, who often joined her in Likely General, months after she had emptied the shop space. We sat at a picnic table in Trinity Bellwoods Park and chatted as Jane eyed the squirrels. We spent the afternoon talking, until the sun was too low, about growing into ourselves, the grief of closing, running a business with chronic illness, and embedding rituals into life.

Brooke Manning. Headshot by Andrew Blake McGill. Photo courtesy of Brooke Manning.

AC: It’s been awhile since Likely General closed. How are things with you these days?

BM: There’s a bit of dissonance for me, [Likely General] ended, and now, me as a person, I’m moving on to the next thing, and yet, there is the grief. I still receive messages that people miss it. I’m feeling that in waves too. But I’m also feeling the lessening of having to be that space.

AC: What does it mean to receive those messages?

BM: I’m touched. Before there was a little bit of a veil so I couldn’t sink too much into it. I didn’t want the ego of it. But I see that it’s not about me at all. You make something and it becomes bigger than you.

Before I would cry and wonder ‘I am letting you down?’ Now I can hold those things. I see that they see I need to do what I need to do. And also, these are gifts from them to say, ‘Thank you for doing that, you provided this for me,’ which is lovely.

AC: On the website, Likely General is described as “an independent community-minded small business.” What does community mean to you?

BM: I grew up in a small town. I feel like small towns are communities in the way that I went to kindergarten with the people that I went to high school with. It was ingrained in the fabric of my being. Coming here [to Toronto] I see community can be as big as the world. It’s the quality of vibrancy, of connection, and wanting to do something effective not just for yourself but for all that surrounds yourself. There’s a danger in the definition of community, also, because it creates separateness.

Likely General departure show. Photo by Ness Devos. Photo courtesy of Brooke Manning.

AC: How did you bring the queer community into Likely General?

BM: I’ve always been queer. I’ve always known that about myself since I was a little kid. I wasn’t open in the world about it until maybe my early- to mid-twenties. And I’m 39 now. When I opened the shop, in 2013, I had been living with my girlfriend at the time. We got [our dog] Jane together, and we still share her back and forth; it’s a beautiful extended Jane family — she’s 10 now. But even our relationship was so closeted. We had separate rooms, which was important to us for our autonomy, but many people didn’t know we were together.

I was looking at myself and realizing what that meant to me as a queer pansexual femme—being with many other queer people behind doors and then being with cishet men out in the world. And having people make assumptions about heterosexuality or all these things that aren’t on the surface. There was part of me that wanted to claim that for myself in an open space. I came to this conclusion in 2014 or 2015 and I kept thinking I have this space; I want to use it. I want to highlight people in a way that feels important to me. It wasn’t altruistic; I knew it would give me something, too. So, I opened the gallery section of the store to honor artists who are queer, or marginalized, or women. And then I very quickly [realized] the whole store has to be like this.

It’s remarkable and helped me come out in this way. I want to be seen for exactly who I am. There’s a seed inside all of us that desires that so badly—we all want to be watered.

Photo by Ness Devos. Photo courtesy of Brooke Manning.

AC: The experience of coming out is a universal one for so many of us who are queer. Would you share your story?

BM: It surprised people. I came out to my mom at the same time as opening Likely General. I remember we were in Zellers and my mom said “You keep talking about this person all the time. But you don’t say their name… Is it a woman? It’s okay if it is.” It was powerful. She very openly accepted me. In that moment, it was scary, but once it happened, it felt like no big deal, which taught me that I could do this in other ways, in bigger ways. And maybe it might be a big deal. Now I’m in this space where I don’t care what people think about me, which is very cool. It allows you to keep going and keep doing all of these things that you want to do. Like I would change the store all the time, just on a whim.

I realized the quality of asking for help and being honest, not just with myself, but with the community and others.

AC: What surprised you in the 10 years you ran Likely General?

BM: This is personal and it’s very simple: I surprised myself and the people who know me best when I came out of my shell. When the store opened, I was coming out of one of the most depressive episodes of my life. I couldn’t see myself. I was 28, and if you believe in this stuff, you’re entering your Saturn Return, it’s a tumultuous time. And holy crap, mine was tumultuous. Then 10 years later, I look at how I’ve been able to blossom, but also believe in myself, and create a self-belief that wasn’t there before. And with that, help other people find their own and shine on them a little bit, in a way that people shone on me so that I could get there. I didn’t expect that would come from opening a store.

AC: How did your chronic illness shape running the shop?

BM: I realized that I can’t do things alone. And I was the kind of person that has since I was born, done things alone. I’m an only child to a single mother. I realized the quality of asking for help and being honest, not just with myself, but with the community and others.

Something shifted, the pandemic started a conversation about people who are immunocompromised or have an autoimmune disease, [I thought] I’m going to be honest. When I can’t show up for work, I’m not just going to pretend that I’m fine when I’m in so much pain. Instead, I’m going to say, ‘I’m closing today.’

I started to hire employees, which helped greatly. I realized that I couldn’t let people into the parts of me that I kept hidden. But the staff texts, the way that we communicated with each other [ended that]. It was beautiful, like a team. Someone would say, ‘I got my period today and I don’t want to be in public, can anyone work?’ And sometimes nobody could, and I said well, we’re just going to close today. Sometimes I couldn’t walk down the stairs and [I thought] ‘If I can’t walk down the stairs, I can’t be in public.’

It’s the people that hold us, it isn’t the money.

Emblem for Likely General by Alicia Nauta. Photo courtesy of Brooke Manning.

AC: You describe a ritual in which you painted boobs when repainting the gallery space in an Instagram post. Can you tell me more about this?

BM: In the early days, I was constantly wearing all-black and nice shoes. I never changed out of my clothes to paint the gallery white — it was funny to me, the dance of it, the fragility. I wasn’t necessarily careful.

I kept thinking about how many layers of paint were on the wall before I got here. I wanted to write something funny [on the wall] and then I thought I’m going to paint a set of boobs every time. Different every time. Because they are all different every time. I would paint these big things, and then laugh to myself, and then paint over them. I did this 100 times before I told a person. Later, I revealed [this ritual on Instagram] and it made people smile. They would come into the gallery and tell their friends, ‘There are 200 pairs of boobs [under the paint].’

AC: Were there other rituals?

BM: I’m pagan and [that informs] my culture and who I want to be in the world and how I want to honour my life. So, I do things, such as candle work and nature stuff, daily. It was really important to ingrain aspects of that into the store to mark time. Time is important to me because I see it as non-linear.

Another ritual I had was around closing the store at the end of the day. I love metal music and Doom. I find it so happy. I grew up with metal and the metal heads that I hung out with in high school were some of the softest people I’ve ever met. So I would blast metal music after I close the store and do my close-out procedures.

Also, I charged a rod of selenite with a particular person and put it above the door so that when people entered the space, they passed under it—whether it’s a placebo or not, that’s magic, and people would walk into the store and be like, ‘I feel different.’

AC: Now that it’s closed, what legacy do you want for Likely General?

BM: That’s a good question. It’s the question I ask people that I work with at the end of life [as a death doula]. I want people to feel like it gave them something that they didn’t have otherwise, couldn’t see otherwise, or couldn’t find in themselves otherwise, but it was always there. It, you know, shone, something on it. I hope it allows people to see that they can do the thing, too. They can open a store that’s a bit against the grain. It doesn’t have to be about making a million dollars, it can be about making a life for yourself that’s joyful, peaceful, and calm.

Despite the Odds: Ordinary Grief by Parisa Azadi

Iranian men stand along a canal running through a farmland in the district of Haji Abad on the outskirts of Borujerd, Iran on February 7, 2018.

By Adi Berardini

Parisa Azadi is an Iranian-Canadian visual storyteller and photojournalist based between Dubai, UAE, and Tehran, Iran. Her series Ordinary Grief stems from a journey that involved Azadi returning to Iran after 25 years of “self-exile and embarking on a personal and political reclamation of her identity and history.” With images spanning 2017-2022, Ordinary Grief aims to, as Azadi describes, “reconcile despair and joy, exhaustion and hope. It’s about ordinary Iranians actively trying to create new futures for themselves despite the odds.” The images explore what it means to attempt to remember after experiencing cultural amnesia, longing, and belonging. The series is a love letter to Iran, the place she was born in, but has felt estranged from. Although Iran and Palestine are two distinctly different places with different histories, the narratives of displacement, war, and grief can be felt in parallel. The following article discusses the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza alongside Azadi’s series Ordinary Grief.

Parisa Azadi. Installation of the current group show at Eyes on Main Street festival in Wilson, NC on display until September 8, 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Recently, I have been corresponding on video chat with Ahmed, a humanitarian aid organizer, in Gaza, Palestine. He’s in the dark (it’s 1 am with the time difference) and attempts to use his phone camera flashlight to illuminate. He shows me where he’s staying—a dark tent with a few buckets and a generator. Although we talk through WhatsApp with the help of translation, we don’t speak much verbally because of the language difference. But we share a mutual understanding in this moment through the silence. His house has been left in ruins due to the bombing; his friends and family members have been killed. He has been repeatedly displaced. When he explains the terror that he has faced I start to feel numb, like being submerged in an ice bath. The image is stamped in my mind, and although witnessing is heavy, it feels crucial. My heart breaks for him and his family.

Among the grief, life steadily keeps going, however much we might want to pause the world like the bad horror movie it can be.

The next day, he tells me that even though there’s genocidal aggression by Israeli forces, the kids are playing football (soccer for the Canadians) in the street. He flips to video chat and shows me the kids playing joyfully in the sandy terrain. A few days later, I see kids playing soccer in their front yard and the sidewalk as I go on my neighborhood walk. I think about the kids in Palestine and their resilience of spirit despite the immense trauma and losses they’ve experienced.

These circumstances demonstrate that even among great strife, life does not stop. Among the grief, life steadily keeps going, however much we might want to pause the world like the bad horror movie it can be. Although we can continue to urge for an immediate ceasefire, we cannot briefly pause life and resume. And in times of struggle, the feelings of anxiety and grief can be overwhelming. But with every story of oppression, there’s a counternarrative of resilience and resistance.

In Parisa Azadi’s ‘Ordinary Grief,’ the title a reference to Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s A Journal of Ordinary Grief, Azadi returns to Iran after 25 years of what she describes as ‘self-imposed’ exile. Azadi was born in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and spent her formative years before she immigrated to Canada when she was eight. As she describes, “Throughout my travels and journey as a photographer, I realized that I was living in this emotional displacement, and I didn’t have a good sense of who I was and where I belonged.  I felt like I needed to go back and to confront that sense of displacement that I felt about my identity and try to come to terms with Iran as my home, as a place where I can exist.”

Nesa and her friend Yasaman look out the window in Tehran amid the coronavirus pandemic in Tehran, Iran on June 9, 2020. Like many young Iranians, they are worried about their future. Currency collapse, unemployment, and inflation make it harder for young Iranians to make ends meet, with many of them seeking a better life abroad.

I was first drawn to Azadi’s photographs for how they spotlight tender moments despite the layers of grief felt in Iran. In one photograph, two women, Nesa and her friend Yasaman, gaze out the window longingly, one lying down, and the other standing, illuminated by the outside lighting. The photo was taken during COVID-19, in a time of economic uncertainty and financial difficulty. Although the women both stare out into the void, the intimacy between them in the photograph is tangible. As Azadi explains, “In Iran, there was always this feeling of grief that was floating in the background, and you can tell by people’s body language and way they would stare off into space or out the window. And this has a lot to do with the fact that they feel like they lack a sense of agency of their own destiny.” Azadi is interested in the sense of disassociation that this provokes, exploring what it’s like to live experiencing isolation and the feeling of imprisonment.

This is a portrait of two sisters on the beach of Bandar Abbas, a port city in the south of Iran. It’s a tender and honest moment. I was struck by their innocence, by what they were wearing, and how free they felt. The portrait reminds me of how much Iran has changed since my childhood. In those days, rules were non-negotiable. I remember being shamed by a stranger for wearing a short dress at the age of six on the streets of Tehran. The growing religious conservatism and culture of fear and resentment taught people to constantly police each other. Iran has changed gradually over the years, but some of those changes have been enormous and the wall that divided us before is gradually crumbling. I’m finding more moments of lightness, moments where life feels a bit more relaxed, normal, and unencumbered.

However, as Azadi emphasizes, she hopes to show Iranians living their normal lives. “I think despite all the tragedies, I didn’t want to paint Iran as this dark and bleak place. Despite the darkness and I [see] constantly in my travels, I would see these moments of joy, lightness, and desire for social change.” And throughout the series, Iran has been experiencing a pivotal societal change in the last seven years.

A photograph features two young sisters on the beach at dusk in their bright Hello Kitty swimsuits, the youngest looking tentative and holding onto her sister’s arm. Azadi explains how she couldn’t go to the beach and play as freely in a bathing suit in the same way as these sisters, even as a child. As she recalls, “Back then, we learned to seek freedom in private. It was a way for us to just protect ourselves from outside dangers and oppressive rules. However, as she further states, “Iran is gradually changing. I am witnessing many Iranians pushing the boundaries of what is traditionally acceptable, actively trying to create a new future for themselves, despite the odds, despite the dangers.”

Children play in the river along Chalus Road on a hot summer day in Mazandaran Province, Iran on July 24, 2018.

Another thread in Ordinary Grief is relationships with animals and connection to the natural landscape. Children hang over the water on a branch in a turquoise inlet with their backs towards the camera on a hot summer day in Mazandaran Province; tourists are pictured in front of a vast natural background, taking photographs, and looking over the terrain. A Kurdish man, Reza, is pictured tending to his horse and gazing thoughtfully but solemnly against a dark lavender sky. The photograph was taken after teaching horse riding lessons in Ilam, Iran.

Reza Alaeinezhad embraces his horse after teaching horse riding lessons in the city of Ilam, Iran on October 28, 2018.

A man named Akbar is pictured on top of a mountain with a walking stick. He takes a break while hiking in the mountainous area of Kilan, once known by locals as a “lost heaven.” However, the village has faced environmental challenges such as severe drought due to climate change and poor urban planning. The image holds a sense of both empowerment and contemplative sadness. A long journey has been made, but he looks out into the landscape as if he’s searching for more.

Akbar Golmohammadi takes a break while hiking in the mountainous area of Kilan, Iran on February 20, 2018. Locals used to call Kilan the lost heaven. But over the years, due to rising temperatures, climate change and poor urban planning, the village is experiencing severe drought and high unemployment rate.

When I speak with Ahmed, he mourns his cat that died in the bombing of his home. He tells me how each morning before the war he would collect the neighbourhood cats and feed them breakfast. Another one of his favourite past times from beforehand is planting trees. When you give to the land, it gives back to you—a mutual relationship. Caring for animals is healing when they also lend care in return, in a world that can seem so gravely uncaring. The connection to the land creates a grounding in tough times but proves difficult when it’s being stripped away from you.  Especially in a world so saturated with unchecked violence that justice remains a hope on the horizon.

Ahmed is a humanitarian aid worker, raising money to feed displaced families and children in Gaza. He and his volunteer team (@Palestinians_11) purchase food in bulk and then cook it in large metal pots for community members. Although he is facing great hardship, his work demonstrates the power of community and solidarity through these difficult times. It’s a narrative that the mainstream media often omits—the narrative of resilience. But he and his family shouldn’t have to be resilient. They deserve a peaceful life just like anyone else does. Heartbreakingly, it’s evident that Ahmed and his family are proud to be Palestinian but are only seeking to leave Gaza due to being forced out by violence, land theft, and occupation.

As Azadi’s Ordinary Grief explores through displaying the tender moments among the hurting of grief and loss, dreaming and desire can hold up a powerful mirror to the ugliness of death and destruction under tyrannical forces, genocide, and war. After all, one of the first things corrupt powers hope to steal is one’s dreams. It takes courage to dream after everything has been stolen away, to return home after years of self-exile, or to connect to the culture you attempted to suppress. A form of resistance to oppression can be living life with pride, despite the ever-present grief and dehumanization, and pushing for social change, despite the odds.

Check out Parisa Azadi’s Ordinary Grief on view at the Eyes On Main Street Photo Festival from June 1st until September 8th in Wilson, NC. 

If you’re interested in supporting Ahmed’s family, please consider sharing or donating to the campaign to help his family evacuate Gaza safely.

Forming Information: IT IS MEANT TO BE READ by Aileen Bahmanipour

Aileen Bahmanipour. IT IS MEANT TO BE READ. Installation shot. Burrard Arts Foundation. Photo courtesy of Dennis Ha. 2023.

March 31 to June 3, 2023

BAF Gallery, Vancouver, BC

By Kiran Dhaliwal

Aileen Bahmanipour’s uncanny installation and works with paper question the regulation of and access to information through its destruction. IT IS MEANT TO BE READ features revisited and new works by the Iranian-Canadian visual artist from her winter residency at the Burrard Arts Foundation. Bahmanipour’s practice is informed by her lived experience with censorship in Iran. Her work also centers the exploration of contemporary forms of Iconoclasm which she defines as “not to reject or negate the image but to redefine it.” 

The gallery is transformed into a quasi-bureaucratic space with diagrammatic imagery, paper hanging on the walls, and a filing cabinet in the center. Instead of answers and information, Bahmanipour’s manipulation of each piece reveals tensions and misgivings in the supposed transparency of constitutional law and archival systems. In turn, this prompts viewers to remedy their curiosities beyond the gallery space and, like the title suggests, encourages active interpretation.

When clarity is lacking, this creates a level of opacity obfuscating the connection between a body and language.

When it comes to information meant to be accessible and understood by the public, things like government documents and constitutions often feel like they’re written in a different language. When clarity is lacking, this creates a level of opacity obfuscating the connection between a body and language. IT IS MEANT TO BE READ (2022) is a manifestation of this connection where Bahmanipour reimagines language through the exploration of her own body in the process of engaging with an English translation of The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This vaguely worded document contains articles regulating and restricting the circulation of information to the Iranian people. For those trying to navigate what’s legal or not (especially when the consequences are severe), the ambiguity plays in favour of the state as the public reaction to such dubiety can present itself as self-censorship. These conditions create cautious, fearful citizens who do not want to test the law, afraid that acting outside of the status quo may land them in prison or worse.

IT IS MEANT TO BE READ by Aileen Bahmanipour installation shot, Burrard Arts Foundation. Photo courtesy of the artist.

This series occupies three of the four walls and takes on two approaches. In the first approach, handmade letter-size sheets of paper are embedded on both sides with single lines cut from the document. The lights of the gallery glow through the sheets that extend outwards making both sides visible to the viewer. Bahmanipour’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the Iranian Constitution is her method of finding new ways to connect to the language and attempt to understand it. The single lines are folded into a knot and then arranged onto the paper like concrete poetry, creating a new method of connection and meaning to the language. 

IT IS MEANT TO BE READ by Aileen Bahmanipour installation shot, Burrard Arts Foundation. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The other two walls are mounted with fifty-five pages of handmade paper that, while still wet, Bahmanipour placed over her keyboard as she typed the constitution. The organic, delicate quality of the paper creates a sense of softness, making the depressions and punctures left by her typing fingertips on the lower half of the sheet somewhat violent. The sheets are affixed side by side to the wall with a single nail against a painted strip of pale umber that runs along the two walls. Described as “cryptic” in the exhibition write-up, this series is arguably the clearest embodiment of Bahmanipour’s efforts to understand and reimagine the text and language. The perforations made in the paper can be seen as indices of her body as she converts dysfunctional language into material form. 

Iconoclasm doesn’t just refer to the destruction of religious icons, images, and monuments, but symbols of a political or ideological cause as well. Bahmanipour’s interest and exploration of contemporary forms of Iconoclasm is displayed in this work. She also gives the ground of the image—which historically has been suppressed and regarded as merely a surface that holds the image—a new language, making it more visible and a part of the image. She uses the iconoclastic gesture of an image-breaker or, as she describes in her statement, “the person who doesn’t have a language of her own but by deconstructing the already established language tries to create new meanings to make sense of reality and create meaning from apparently disparate elements.”

Aileen Bahmanipour. IT IS MEANT TO BE READ. Installation shot. Burrard Arts Foundation. Photo courtesy of Dennis Ha. 2023.

The sculptural installation, Filing Cabinet (2017-2023) is a transparent, self-destructive archive system. Again, Bahmanipour interrogates the supposed transparency of archival systems by removing the sides of the filing cabinet to make the insides visible. Viewers are encouraged to open and look through the drawers. Three of which contain clear folders with printed and layered diagrammatic imagery. As if the cabinet was dreaming about the folders that sit inside of it, a dream bubble in the form of a large painted roll of acetate reaches up and wraps itself around the duct above. 

On the floor between the two is plastic tubing that is connected to a dosing engine in the bottom cabinet drawer. The engine administers a permanent, acidic ink that travels through the tubes and pools onto the painted pile of acetate and given its nature, will ruin the intricate illustrations. When an archival system is meant to preserve and accumulate information, Bahmanipour gives us an anti-archival, self-destructive system that eats away at itself. No matter how clear the folders and acetate are or how many panels are taken off the filing cabinet, what stands between me and this installation is a curious space worth questioning.

At a time when we are constantly bombarded by information and falling into algorithmic feedback loops on social media, IT IS MEANT TO BE READ left me feeling slightly disoriented and walking away wanting to know more. Bahmanipour’s manipulation of the selected source materials raises questions about the systems and flow of information meant for the public. By deconstructing and reconstructing the image, her work interrogates archaic, systematic constructions of representation and presumed objectivity with an alternate visual form. Despite the opacity of their façade, viewers are invited to interact with the materials that promise transparency and are meant to explain how systems function. Instead of searching for answers in documents that falsely promise this transparency, the exhibition encourages using our confusion or restriction of information as a catalyst to create alternative methods of understanding.

This review is featured in our third print issue themed on Censorship found here.

Labour Care: A Poem & Conversation with Camila Salcedo

Photo of Labour Pains curated by Emma Steen for Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts at Workers Arts & Heritage Centre. Photo by Carolyn Combs.

By Kalina Nedelcheva

Labour Pains, an exhibition curated by Toronto-based curator and writer Emma Steen for Mayworks Festival of Working People & the Arts 2024 at Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, takes the body of the precarious worker as a starting point. Within the context of a capitalist system that approaches the body as a tool to be exploited in the name of profit — where accessibility and support often come as an afterthought or are completely ignored — the body is in constant danger of breaking down. Labour Pains surveys the challenges workers with varying needs and abilities face while accessing healthcare. Steen brings artists Camila Salcedo, Peter Morin, and Sean Lee and Birdie Gerhl together to explore the uncertainty of freelance employment, Indigenous relations to healthcare, disability, accessibility, and Crip Politics. The exhibition frames healthcare as a labour rights issue while shedding light on the sinister capitalist and social structures that prevent healthcare from being accessible for all.

The following interview is an experimental conversation with multi-disciplinary artist Camila Salcedo who contributed a series of care objects to the exhibition. Through a series of conversations with artists and cultural workers who have experienced serious brain injuries, Camila reimagines homemade remedies through a creative lens. While the objects figure as acts of care from one precarious worker to another, they also touch upon the risk of healthcare privatization for freelance artists and the financial strain unexpected illnesses or injuries can have on the precarious body. Drawing inspiration from the artist’s playful approach to guiding attention to bodily ails under capitalism, the interviewer paired each question with a poetic verse that reflects and responds to Camila’s practice and the ethos of Labour Pains in general.

Camila Salcedo. taking care: brain injury stories (2024). Photo by Kafayé Clarke. Image courtesy of the artist.

stone-walled to

hear my thoughts;

misshapen and delirious,

though, still here;

at least they’re still here;

What has been your experience with the healthcare system?

Camila: I’ve noticed that doctors don’t have a lot of time and often, you have to advocate for yourself a lot within the healthcare system. Nurses and other types of healers — like massage therapists and chiropractors — have been angels in my experience because they pay attention to the emotional aspects of health issues; they’ve treated me more like a human being whereas oftentimes doctors just want you in and out. Doctors want you to get better as quickly as possible so you can return to the capitalist lifestyle.

It is apparent to me how little mental health supports exist to guide one in dealing with the healthcare system. It is not very holistic. I’ve also had drastically different experiences, depending on whether I was covered by insurance or not at the time of my visit. When you don’t have insurance, it is more difficult to navigate the system.

It is apparent to me how little mental health supports exist to guide one in dealing with the healthcare system.

Emotional support and mental health integration in the healthcare system is necessary and should be a priority. Recently, I’ve been reading a few books — one of which is The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté — that point out how stress can cause different types of illnesses and issues to the body. There is a huge correlation between experiencing stress and the efficacy of healthcare that is missed.

keep working, still working

still working, keep working;

I feel my body rumble

because of the intensity but

my thoughts are calm;

they must be calm.

Camila Salcedo. taking care: brain injury stories (2024). Photo by Kafayé Clarke. Image courtesy of the artist.

How do you embody the precarity freelance workers experience in the healthcare system through your art?

C: I am an artist who is in a precarious situation and that seeps into my work because when I don’t have funding, I am unable to make the work. That in itself is part of my process. The pieces I made for Labour Pains also touched on this. I interviewed three individuals —  musician and facilitator Carmel Farahbakhsh, curator and educator Patricia Ritacca, and musician and media artist Katie Kotler — who’ve had brain injuries in different capacities. I asked what tools help them in alleviating their symptoms and had conversations with them about the challenges they’ve experienced in accessing care.

With Carmel, we discussed how there should be more funding for administrative assistance for disabled folks. With brain injuries, people might have difficulties being on screens so there needs to be additional support that would help with that. In my conversation with Patricia, we chatted about insurance and how not having access to physio and other types of care work can exacerbate symptoms. These conversations informed the works I made for Carmel, Patricia, and Katie. I wanted these wearable art pieces to respond to their symptoms while visually conveying some of the topics that came up in our conversation. Katie, for example, spoke about how brain injuries are invisible, even within queer and disabled communities. People may not often believe you because you’re not showing physical symptoms of pain. I used neon colors in Katie’s pieces to account for that. It was also important to draw on their personal style because I find that a lot of disability tools are clunky and ugly. I wanted my pieces to be fun and something my interviewees would want to wear. I see it as a labour of care toward them because when I had intense symptoms, they really created a sense of community care for me.

Speaking to each other can be a huge help in navigating the system. Wage transparency is a great example of this. For people with chronic pain, discussing and sharing strategies about how you are making it work is important. Spaces like Tangled Arts and Mayworks Festival are doing a great job; they really consider disabled artists. I do think access is improving over time in the arts sector but I want to see more of it. In one of my recent curatorial projects with Mending the Museum, we put a clause in the artist contract that stated if the artist experienced any sort of health issue that prevented them from completing the work, we’d still honor paying them for their time. I’ve had students in the past who’ve paid for my sewing classes asking me for additional time and resources. We need to be aware that sometimes someone might not be able to show up in a timely way or deliver within a specific timeline. There is no such thing as an art emergency. There is no rush, even though the world tells us that there is. I would like to see more art spaces embrace that mentality.

it’s locked away

behind the pain of labour,

a hand reaching out;

still reaching,

keep reaching;

it grasps at the thread of my hope.

Camila Salcedo. taking care: brain injury stories (2024). Photo by Kafayé Clarke. Image courtesy of the artist.

What are the remedies for your labour pain? Are they obedient/disobedient (toward the system)?

C: I’ve tried navigating the terms of stability versus instability as an artist and explored to what degree I felt okay inhabiting those levels of comfort. At times, this meant having part-time jobs in order to sustain my practice but after spending two weeks in the hospital last year with severe health problems, this is no longer the case for now. Even though I don’t discard it as a possibility, I am unable to work an office job in the same way right now.

in the realm of precarity—

health, is it only for some

and not for others?

how do we decide?

How do you categorize the objects you exhibit in Labour Pains?

C: My objects can be described as helpers. The work is about caring for each other and wearable art is an expression of that but also a tool. My goal is to honor and take care of my community in response to how these folks have shown me care throughout the years.

hope that there is better,

hope that there is care;

what is care?

Camila Salcedo. taking care: brain injury stories (2024). Photo by Kafayé Clarke. Image courtesy of the artist.

Are there any radical ‘traditions’ for the healthcare system that you feel would be useful to a movement toward healthcare for all?

C: Community care happens naturally. At the opening of Labour Pains, Emma Steen, the curator, mentioned that without being prompted all the artists in the exhibition incorporated people they worked with in their artworks. It was evident that collaboration and coming together within the community was really important for this project.

Anytime I’ve experienced heavy health problems, I’ve been bolstered by an entire community of friends, family, and chosen family. Community Care should be translated more systemically within the healthcare system. We should have a team helping us out and not one singular doctor who refers us to a specialist. People have specialties but it would be better to have multiple people helping to come to a solution to your health problem. We should have a therapist, a nurse, and so on. They should be able to communicate better with each other too. I think that would really help. There should also be more accessible ways to access health insurance. We do have free healthcare in Canada but there are so many levels of care that are more holistic and natural that are not covered. Oftentimes, those are more useful. Family doctors usually prescribe you medication whereas other types of care work help you more somatically.

You can find more of Camila Salcedo’s artistic work, workshop offerings, and practice on their website and Instagram. For more information on Labour Pains and the wonderful artists involved in the project — visit the Mayworks Festival website here.

A Feminist Curating Gaze with Artierranti

Deconstruction of the Patriarchal Art World

Artierranti team. Left to right, Laura Brambilla and Giorgia Casadei.

By Irene Bernardi

ARTIERRANTI is a cultural association born in 2013 based in Bologna, Italy. The main intention of their project is the concept of curation as the primary form of mediation. Each project stems from a close collaboration with the artists and is defined as a unique event. The research is focused on finding amplifiers for the work and the poetics through curating solo exhibitions and seeking collaborations for each artist with experts, organizations, and institutions.

Today Laura Brambilla and Giorgia Casadei are leading the project, which finds “home” at Officina Artierranti, located in the city center of Bologna.

You define yourself as a “Feminist and Woman cultural association.” How do you prioritize feminist values in art and curating within your exhibitions and workshops? Especially today where most curatorial and art positions are held by men!

In 2022, when we dedicated ourselves to redesigning our website, we decided to include the description “a female and feminist association” in our presentation. This is a phrase that we might have found somewhat daring in the past, but today, we have chosen to formally declare our stance, in line with what the art world demands. I always think of Carla Lonzi, an art critic and activist, who wrote in Autoritratto: “When I learned that feminism existed, I didn’t even bother to find out what it was, I am a woman, I do feminism.”[1]


Perhaps the same has happened to us. Naturally, our research gravitated towards feminism, opting not only to give more space to female artists but also to promote works that would foster debate, to continue questioning the role we have played throughout history and the space we wish to claim today.

An important topic in your curatorial footprint, is the synergy with spaces where you decide to have an exhibition: not a simple “white cube” but places where we can see a strong relationship with the artist, poetics, and artworks. What criteria do you use when selecting unconventional locations for art exhibitions? Can you give some examples from past exhibitions or projects?


Initially, the choice to be nomadic was determined by our lack of a stable location. When we founded Artierranti in 2013, we were still students at the Academy of Fine Arts, quite uncertain about our future, and it seemed best not to commit to managing a space we would struggle to maintain. For this reason, Giorgia and I envisioned a nomadic association, capable of moving and transforming in response to the artist and the project. This curatorial approach stood in stark contrast to the white cube, which tends to eliminate any form of contamination, a thought that believed (and still believes) that every artist and every poetic requires a proper place of resonance.

This, of course, had direct consequences such as the choice to hold only solo exhibitions, besides the fact that, from a logistical standpoint, moving always to unconventional places not intended for exhibitions imposed many more limitations in terms of setup. Over the years, we have searched for places that were increasingly consistent with our research project, even from a content perspective. Consider, for example, what we did with Guido Volpi at the Luigi Fantini Museum of Speleology or, for instance, with Susana Ljuljanovic at the Cassero – Gender Identity Documentation Center in Bologna. In these projects, not only did the location become an integral part of the research, but it also served as a code for understanding the project.   

Susana Ljuljanovic, Song of Invisible Garden, 2022. Cassero – Gender Identity Documentation Center, Bologna. Courtesy  of Eleonora Conti and the artist.

How do you reconcile reflecting on past experiences and planning future projects inside and outside Officina Artierranti?


In 2016, we decided to establish a physical headquarters for the Association. This idea stemmed from the fact that our wandering made it difficult to identify and recognize Artierranti. We wanted to showcase what we had been able to build in the early years by creating a hub where we could meet artists, construct, and store all the staging supports created by Giorgia, and also collect artworks donated by artists who had collaborated with us. Thus, Officina Artierranti was born with the dual soul of an archive and a workshop, facilitated by the presence of a street-level floor with a display window and a basement. In constructing this new phase, we set a rule for ourselves: Officina Artierranti would never become an exclusive exhibition venue, but we would continue to seek other places to set up exhibitions to create increasingly conceptual connections with the city. Collaborating with various local entities has allowed us to create solid relationships that persist.

Adele Dipasquale, I swallowed a Butterfly, 2024. Educational Department, MAMbo Museum of Modern Art of Bologna. Courtesy of Artierranti and the artist.

I would like to talk about the latest exhibition at ART CITY 2024 in Bologna, I SWALLOWED A BUTTERFLY, a solo exhibition by Italian artist Adele Dipasquale. The exhibition focused on the role of sound as a cultural and patriarchal tool. How does this concept contribute to the exploration and subversion of patriarchal power dynamics within Dipasquale’s works?

Meeting and delving into Adele’s work was extremely interesting. When we [encountered] their videos, we were deeply fascinated by the imagery. But each image is a gateway to a complex universe of references to history, mythology, and literature that show how the education we receive from early childhood is fundamentally patriarchal. In Adele’s work, the most apparent trait of this female subordination is addressed through sound: the female protagonist decides to emit all possible sounds, including the guttural and monstrous ones attributed from Aristotle onwards to the female gender, thus losing her own voice. In this way, achieving a state of silence becomes an exercise in freedom.

Adele Dipasquale, I swallowed a Butterfly, 2024. Educational Department, MAMbo Museum of Modern Art of Bologna. Courtesy of Artierranti and the artist.

What I have seen as a “red thread” among many of the recent exhibitions is how the feminine tries to regain the freedom that has been taken away from it, partly because of the many superstitions and attributions throughout history.


Certainly, we deliberately chose to open Adele Dipasquale‘s curatorial text with a quote from the essayist Nicoletta Polla Mattiot, which says, “There is no conviction more deeply rooted than the cliché.”[2] Reflecting on the past two years of work, I realize that we have traversed different worlds and cultures, from Greek mythology to Mexican mythology before and after Spanish colonization. We have encountered powerful female figures, both real and imaginary, who, precisely because of their great power, have been gradually forced to inhabit increasingly small and controlled spaces, eventually becoming figures of the abyss, often monstrous and horrific. In this way, in Noemi Mirata‘s exhibition, the myth of Proserpina encountered Gloria Anzaldúa’s “Borderlands,”[3] finding strong correspondence with the goddess Coatlicue: two women who inhabit the borderlands and contain within themselves the power of life and the power of death.

Noemi Mirata, PROSERPERE. Indicativo presente, 2023. Offina Artierranti, Via Sant’Isaia 56/A, Bologna. Courtesy of Eleonora Conti and the artist.

What advice would you give to someone who is taking their first steps into the world of curation?

We are well aware that working in the arts, especially in Italy, means struggling. Often, we have chosen to self-fund our projects rather than spending unpaid work hours trying to access some form of funding, so the best advice we can give is to always have fun first and foremost. Finding pleasure in one’s research is crucial in order to offer quality work. Another important aspect is to always strive to build a relationship of equality and ongoing exchange with artists, which is one of the most interesting aspects of our work. Finally, I believe that today it is essential to choose how to position oneself and consequently propose exhibitions that are consistent with one’s research line, without running the risk of becoming overly didactic.


Can we have a little preview about your next project?

We are currently following several projects. First, we would like to conclude the trilogy about gender/boundary with a final exhibition by a female artist. At the same time, we are planning the next exhibition to be proposed within Art City Bologna 2025. Additionally, for some time we have been thinking about a much broader project dedicated to the relationship between women and nature, involving various artists who have collaborated with us over the years. In this case, we would like to somewhat disrupt our patterns, perhaps thinking as a curatorial collective…however, at the moment we do not want to reveal too much!

You can find more information about Artierranti on their Instagram or Facebook.

[1] Carla Lonzi, Autoritratto. Accardi, Alviani, Castellani, Consagra, Fabro, Fontana, Kounellis, Nigro, Paolini, Pascali, Rotella, Scarpitta, Turcato, Twombly, Abscondita, Milano, 2021

[2] Nicoletta Polla Mattiot is an Italian essayist and journalist.

[3] Gloria Anzaldúa was an American sociologist and writer of Chicana, feminist, and cultural theory. 

Reimagining the Gaps: Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts

Jackman Humanities Institute

September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024

Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, Lan “Florence” Yee, Kama La Mackerel, Jordan King, and Kasra Jalilipour

Curated by Dallas Fellini

Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, The Pink Pegboard from Tape Condition: degraded (2016), 2023. Mixed-media installation, dimensions variable. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

By Adi Berardini

I walk into what looks like a 1990s hotel lobby with a black, brown, and weathered gold interior filled with house plants. I walk determinedly to the elevators to head up to the tenth floor of the Jackman Humanities Institute – an interdisciplinary building part of the University of Toronto. In many ways, an exhibition within meeting rooms seems well-suited to queer the space of (potentially boring) meetings. The exhibition Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, curated by Dallas Fellini, features artists Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, Lan “Florence” Yee, Kama La Mackerel, Jordan King, and Kasra Jalilipour. The show addresses how the colonial archive has omitted queer and trans works from its depths while also being a method of control and surveillance of LGBTQ2S+ artists.

Exiting the elevator, I see a stark white office space with a reception desk. Walking down the hall to the main exhibition space, the installation by Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney immediately stands out. Among a pink wall with perforated holes, there are items such as pink triangle archival buttons saying, “No more shit” and a rendered drawing of the buttons, a bag of gloves, a paddle, drawings of VHS tapes and instructions for their care, and a megaphone with fabric strips forming the shape of a pop-pom. Tools hang below a sign that says “LESBIANS invented the internet” in green text. There’s a printout of the Body Politic issue featuring an essay by Chris Bearchell about lesbian porn.

Created as part of a residency at the ArQuives, Meyer and McKinney address pro-porn versus anti-porn feminism, a long-standing discussion within feminist circles. Some may question if lesbian porn should be kept in archives when lesbian identity has been so sexualized. However, capturing DIY lesbian porn and desire is an important aspect of an archive and snapshot in time. The installation takes a more sex-positive approach and parallels the care for VHS tapes with kinky sex practices. The installation sparks a discussion of the ethics of collecting queer porn and the forces against it, such as the police.

Jordan King, Untitled, 2020. Polaroids, 3.5” x 4.5” each. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Further, on the back wall, self-portrait polaroid snapshots–Untitled (2020) by Jordan King–capture burlesque-inspired glamour shots, with King donned in a skin-tight red dress, feathers, and red lipstick. Dallas explained how King is a big fan of the drag performer International Chrysis. King was relocating to New York and showed up to an apartment viewing she found on Craigslist. While looking around, she noticed polaroids of the performer in the apartment. As it turns out, the tenant (and King’s future roommate) was a friend of Chrysis. King recreates the glamorous images she found in the apartment, continuing International Chrysis’ legacy—which could be a coincidence or the pearl string of fate. The original images that served as inspiration are alongside the reiterations. The photos spotlight how, due to institutional failure, the LGBTQ2S+ community ultimately becomes the caretakers and archivists of our own community and how we inherit these images and honour their legacy.

Kama La Mackerel, Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness: Trans Subjectivity in the Postcard, 2019. Inkjet on silk paper, 24” x 16” each. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Kama La Mackerel’s self-portraiture series Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness: Trans Subjectivity in the Postcard (2019) reflects on the tourist postcards depicting a crafted paradise that erases the native populations, specifically in Mauritius. Trans femmes and women are erased in these colonial depictions of land without a trace of its native inhabitants. The cultural heritage and queerness itself are often shrouded by colonial and heteronormative values instead. La Mackerel poses in front of a vast and beautiful background of fields and mountains, centering and reasserting themselves into the picture. La Mackerel challenges these postcards as a capitalistic tactic to bring tourists and settlers to the land stewarded by the Indigenous population for centuries through the empowering stances before the landscape.

The video Gut Feelings: Fragments of Truth (2021), by artist Kasra Jalilipour, explores the life (and imagined life) of the Qajar era historical figure Zahra Khanum, also known as Tāj al-Saltaneh. The 3D modelling software version of Tāj al-Saltaneh spinning around a vibrant background reimagines the gaps of what the historical archive has erased or omitted. The voiceover is reminiscent of a letter to an old friend. Jalilipour looks at the way that Tāj al-Saltaneh is filtered through Eurocentric and misogynist standards. A meme circulated online (which conflated her and her sister, Esmat) comments with surprise at how she had rejected 13 men who then killed themselves, labelling her as unattractive. Jalilipour is also interested in how her androgyny implies her unattractiveness.

Kasra Jalilipour, Gut Feelings: Fragments of Truth and Gut Feelings: Fragments of Fiction, 2021. Video, 12:16 and 3:04. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Jalilipour poses the question to AI, what do Iranian women look like? They scroll through image-search feeds that depict white-washed versions of Iranian women in an image search. When they tried recreating al-Saltaneh through a game, they did not have much success, and the game software could not correctly identify her ethnic background or gender. Through the fictional media essay, Jalilipour speculates on Tāj al-Saltaneh’s queerness since she was linked to Queen Maria Anna of Spain. When they tried to google Tāj al-Saltaneh, images of Queen Maria Anna of Spain also came up. They infer a secret romance between the two as well as their frustration that it was easier to recreate Maria Anna in the game with its Eurocentric design features. Jalilipour also reflects on how natural showing affection to other women was historically with awe and admiration.

Suspended from the ceiling, Lan “Florence” Yee’s textile work PROOF (2022-2023) reflects on what classifies a queer image and the labour that lies behind it. In the background are discarded chairs overlaid with the hand-embroidered text PROOF, like a printed photograph proof. Yee asserts that human rights should be inherent and challenges how the archive erases queer and trans narratives through its structure, notably the queer Asian histories and other racialized queer people. Nothing should have to be proven to gain rights and respect from others. They use humour and irony by using the imagery of chairs— perhaps it’s the conversations that happen in these chairs through community organizing that matter most.

Lan “Florence” Yee, Leaving Space, 2019. Hand-embroidered nylon thread, tulle, and galvanized steel wire, 10″ x 7.5″ x 15″, set of three boxes. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Down the hallway in a meeting room is Yee’s Leaving Space (2019), consisting of sewn, transparent baskets reading “for the unrecordable,” “for the unrecorded,” and “the yet to be recorded.” The work references archival bank boxes, although its soft fabric reminded me of a laundry storage basket, adding a further touch of humour. The fabric sculpture acts as an altar for the voices silenced or looked over by colonial archives but ends on a hopeful note that their voices will still be remembered and recorded.

The exhibit wonderfully explores the personal record-keeping and storytelling that takes place when the colonial archive has suppressed and erased queer voices. Mnemonic Silences, Disappearing Acts looks at the way that archives have not only excluded queer stories but are used as means of surveillance when they do include them. The highlights of the exhibit are the creative approaches artists bring when it comes to using the queer imagination to reimagine the gaps and erasures in the archive.

This review can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

What if I Knew? by Mona Sahi: On Censorship and Brutality in Iran

Mona Sahi – “Metamorphosis” (fragment), 2023; scratch on birch panel. Image courtesy of the artist.

Curated by Asal Andarzipour

Harcourt House Artist Run Centre

July 28 to September 9, 2023

By Freyja T. Catton

Mona Sahi is an Iranian artist who now lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Shortly after she arrived in Edmonton in early 2021, Sahi befriended fellow Iranian artist and curator Asal Andarzipour, who arrived in Edmonton in 2018. Sahi and Andarzipour are kindred spirits, both women artists who grew up in Iran around the same time. In the summer of 2023, Andarzipour curated Sahi’s inaugural Canadian exhibition at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. What If I Knew?[1] ran from July 28 to September 9, 2023, and shows Sahi’s multidisciplinary works from the past year that confront brutality in Iran.

The catalyst for What If I Knew was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. On September 13, 2022, Amini was arrested and beaten by the morality police in Tehran, Iran for wearing her hijab improperly. Arrests and beatings by the morality police have been commonplace for many years in Iran, but this was the first known death as a result. Amini’s death sparked a global uproar against the morality police and the religious government that sanctioned them.[2] Protestors are still being attacked by government forces, sometimes murdered, sometimes vanished. The Kurdish Jineaology (feminist) phrase “Jin, Jian, Azadi” was chanted at Amini’s funeral,[3] and the English translation, “Woman, Life, Freedom,”[4] has become the motto of the current feminist movement in Iran.

In Edmonton, Sahi and Andarzipour were horrified by the news of Amini’s death. They felt helpless being so far away and wanted to raise awareness of the events to help. One of the most compelling ways they have done this is through the powerful combination of Sahi’s art and Andarzipour’s writing. In What If I Knew, Sahi uses her art to initiate conversations about the consequences of corrupt power. Andarzipour uses her writing to provide context and understanding of the events for a Western audience with her extensive knowledge of Iranian history and art history.

Mona Sahi – “Self Portrait”, 2023; acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.


Absurdity of Oppression


            It is important to understand that the culture of Iran is a separate entity from the religious government. The over 2,500-year-old culture of Iran refers to the people—family, friends, and cultural and regional memory. Iran moved to a centralized and constitutional monarchy, the Qajar Dynasty, in the 1800s[5]. During the Pahlavi Dynasty from 1925-1979, women’s clothing became an inseparable part of the political scene during the time of Reza Shah Pahlavi. Political unrest and uprisings in the 1970s led to the end of the Iranian monarchy in 1979. It was replaced by the Islamic Republic at the end of the Islamic Revolution, which remains in power to the present day.

The Islamic Republic can be described as theological colonialism[6], as it oppresses civilians and imposes strict legislative sanctions on the cultural practices of Iranians. Women’s clothing has been a point of legislation for the last hundred years or so, but hijabs have been compulsory for women since 1981.[7] Sanctions such as dress codes are enforced by the morality police. In 1987, the Islamic Republic created the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance to monitor and guide the ethics, values, and narrative of Iran.[8] This includes approval or banning of art exhibitions, films, writing, and journalism.

Censorship and brutality often go hand in hand with oppressive regimes. Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Guidance and the morality police work in tandem to oppress civilians, especially women. Art, films, TV shows, music, and other creative and intellectual pursuits are frequently banned for promoting unapproved values. Intellectuals and film directors are sometimes killed or go missing. Censorship seeks to limit dissent, prevent access to “the real story,” and control the intellect of the people, while brutality seeks to impose physical limitations on what the body and mind can do. Strategies of censorship and brutality reinforce each other to prevent civilians from resisting the prescribed norms of the government regime.

Resistance doesn’t have to be obvious, but it does need to be intentional.

Resistance

Resistance doesn’t have to be obvious, but it does need to be intentional. How women resist oppressive regimes is linked to how they live and celebrate their personal lives. Sharing rumours and gossip can be a method of resistance against government propaganda. Dancing and celebration of life can show resistance against bodily and cultural control. Personalizing a hijab or using images of houses to represent people are both subtle and subversive expressions of freedom. As a practicing artist in Iran, Sahi displayed her paintings and learned how to use metaphors and symbolism to communicate without inviting censorship.

Protests like “Woman, Life, Freedom” are significant and powerful displays of resistance. Civilian protests have popped up regularly throughout Iran’s recent history in 2019 and 2022. In 2019-2020, the “Bloody Aban” protests erupted in response to prolonged economic hardship.[9] 2022 saw the death of Amini and the protests that erupted in response. In each, the police response was violent and resulted in civilian death. With faster news cycles, it seems like the cycle of protests has been speeding up in recent years. Censorship issues worldwide are linked to misinformation, banning of resources, discrimination, harassment, and civilian violence or judicial brutality. Catalyst moments like the death of Amini point out how absurd oppression can be. The political becomes personal because what happens in the news is happening to people like us. This could be us.

“Mona Sahi: What If I Knew?” – fragment of the exhibition installaton. In the background (l-r): “End of
the World” (2023; acrylic on canvas), “At Least We Are Safe” (2023; acrylic on canvas); on the floor:
“1,500 + ….” (2023; ceramic on black sand). Photo copyright by Jack Bawden.

What If I Knew?

Sahi’s work in What If I Knew? includes paintings, drawings, ceramics, an audio piece, and interactions from the audience. Instead of tempering her message to avoid censorship, she now has to avoid making the intense topic too overwhelming for either herself or the viewer. To develop her visual language for a new audience, Sahi has been experimenting with new mediums—particularly performance, installation, and audio. Each project focuses on different aspects of the brutality in Iran.

Upon entry to the exhibition’s opening, Sahi invited visitors to wear a blindfold over one eye. This visual limitation simulated the experience of protestors in Iran, hundreds of whom were shot in the eyes by security forces during the 2022 September uprisings.[10]

Black and white drawings of embryos combined with the title prompt the realization that we do not know what anyone will grow up to become, or the impact that one person’s development will have on the world at large. Who is responsible for the development of dictators who condemn protestors? What if I knew this baby would grow up to become an oppressive dictator? Could I have prevented the deaths of my people?

1500+ responds to the protests in 2019-2020 when the Iranian government violently cracked down on peaceful protests. Placed in the centre of the gallery, this installation is a series of cast and painted ceramic bullets arranged upright in black sand. The bullets look highly realistic, and the upright grid formation resembles soldiers standing at attention. “People went to the streets for peaceful protest because of the price of gas, and the government massacred 1800 people,” explains Sahi. “The black sand is a symbol for oil. People are dying for it, we’re losing our lives. The actual number of bullet shells is more than that because the regime never stopped killing people.[11]” If the piece had been created in Iran, Sahi could have collected actual bullets off the ground. Instead, the bullets are recreated with ceramic clay from 17 different molds of the same kind of bullets used by the government against protestors.  By recreating them out of clay, Sahi references religious narratives of human creation from clay, pointing to the use of the Islamic religion for oppression and control in Iran.

Can You Hear Me Now? is an audio piece that responds to the death of activist Mohammad Moradi by recreating the sound of someone drowning.[12] Moradi’s suicide in December 2022 by drowning in the Rhône River was a final act of protest—a demand for people to listen to the atrocities in Iran. He was far away from Iran, feeling helpless and trying to get people to pay attention. It did not work. Sahi reminds us of his story and asks the same overwhelming questions that Moradi did. How do you get people to listen? What do you do when no one is listening?

Sahi and Andarzipour demonstrate how to use art as an act of resistance. By addressing this emotional weight head-on and by speaking from personal experiences, they remind us of the connections between cultural resilience and resistance. They suggest that by being aware of historical precedence, we can replace corruption with transparency and accountability. We can use art to resist censorship and to note the absurdity of oppressive regimes.

Each piece is inspired by one specific event relating to brutality in Iran, but the overarching messages apply to other experiences. 1500+ could be interpreted as protest art about gun violence in the United States. Can You Hear Me Now? shares feelings of overwhelming helplessness and/or violence. The embryo drawings could connect to the politicization of reproductive health. The common thread between these stories is the brutality that corrupt governments impose on civilians and the weight of anxiety and survivor’s guilt that results.

Artist Mona Sahi and curator Asal Andarzipour at the opening reception of What If I Knew, July 28, 2023. Photo by Kamyar Pouyeh.

In Sahi’s work, medium and imagery are used in combination to convey meaning. Each piece in What If I Knew? relates to a defined point in time, such as the deaths of 1500 protestors in 2019-2020, or the death of Moradi in December 2022. The exhibition is timeless in that it talks about how colonialism uses specific methods of censorship and brutality to impose control over a civilian population. Sahi shows how the Islamic Republic government uses censorship to impose colonial ideals and ways of life onto a population with its own distinct culture, as well as how the Islamic Republic uses brutality to reinforce those ways of life and to punish resistance.

Sahi’s art and Andarzipour’s writing work together to resist messages from the Islamic Republic and to prioritize lived experiences. They use their position in Canada to identify atrocities, name those responsible, and seek justice. Reconciliation is only possible if we know what is happening.

This review can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

[1] Mona Sahi: What If I Knew? Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, July 28-September 9, 2023.https://harcourthouse.ab.ca/mona-sahi/

[2] “Mahsa Amini: What we know after 11 days of protests in Iran.” Maziar Motamedi, Al Jazeera, September 28, 2022.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/28/what-we-know-after-11-days-of-protests–in-iran

[3] “CMHR marks anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian custody with display of Woman, Life, Freedom banner.” CBC News, September 15, 2023.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/hajar-moradi-banner-mahsa-amini-death-human-rights-museum-1.6967751

[4] Woman Life Freedom. Accessed October 26, 2023. https://www.womanlifefreedom.today/

[5] “Iran (Persia), 1800-1900 A.D.” The Metropolitian Museum of Art. Accessed October 26, 2023. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/10/wai.html

[6] “How the Islamic Republic colonised Iran” by Maryam Aslany and Rana Dasgupta. The New Statesman, September 25, 2023. https://www.newstatesman.com/international-content/2023/09/islamic-republic-colonised-iran

[7] “Parliament Passes New “Hijab and Chastity” Bill” by The Iran Primer, United States Institute of Peace, September 25, 2023. https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2023/sep/25/parliament-passes-new-%E2%80%9Chijab-and-chastity%E2%80%9D-bill

[8] “Responsibilities and organizational structure of Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance” by the Secretariat of Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution. Iran Culture, August 3, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080803173726/http://www.iranculture.org/en/nahad/ershad.php

[9] “Iran: More than 100 protesters believed to be killed as top officials give green light to crush protests.” Amnesty International, November 19, 2019. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/11/iran-more-than-100-protesters-believed-to-be-killed-as-top-officials-give-green-light-to-crush-protests/

[10] “Eyes That No Longer See: A Story Of Resistance, Exile, And Sorrow” by Maryam Moqaddam and Masoud Kazemi. Iran International, September 28, 2023. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202309286011

[11] “The List: Mona Sahi’s What If I Knew? at Harcourt House confronts brutality in Iran” by Fish Griwkowsky. Edmonton Journal, August 4, 2023. https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/local-arts/the-list-mona-sahis-what-if-i-knew-at-harcourt-house-confronts-brutality-in-iran-2

[12] “Activist Moradi’s death in France shakes distressed members of Iranian diaspora” by Arab News, December 31, 2022. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2224426/world

Finding a Place: In Discussion with Jude Abu Zaineh

Portrait of Jude Abu Zaineh by Kamryn Cusumano. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Interview by Adi Berardini

Jude Abu Zaineh is a Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist-curator working at the intersection of art, food, science, and technology studies, as well as maintaining a neon art practice. As she describes, her work “develops alternate archive practices and investigates themes of culture, displacement, storytelling, diaspora, and belonging, through decolonial and feminist perspectives.” Her bio art process often includes cooking Palestinian meals for community members and analyzing the bacterial culture, through scientific modes in Petri dishes, capturing its decay and shifts over time. 

I first met Jude back in January 2020, shortly after the opening of the group exhibition, Through Clenched Teeth at Forest City Gallery, which included her work entitled Maqlouba | مقلوبة’ featuring multiple orange glowing Petri dishes. Afterward, we all went out to London’s beloved bar, Poacher’s Arms, known for its karaoke rooms and basement vibes. At the time, Jude was near the beginning of her Ph.D. studies, bringing her to upstate New York, which she is now wrapping up. I feel fortunate to have met Jude and follow her practice and accolades at a distance, and grateful for her support of Femme Art Review and building up feminist spaces in a climate that often only shows interest in tearing them down.

Jude speaks more about the heartbreak of the relevancy of her work at this time of political and social aggression towards Palestinians by the Israeli government and military forces, and the cumulation of years of occupation and apartheid rearing its violent head. She discusses Palestinian resiliency and the power of art to foster connection during a time when it’s deeply essential.

Studies in Colour + Flora .Jude Abu Zaineh. 2022-ongoing mixed media in agar, petri dishes Photos by Michael Valiquette.

Your practice is quite interdisciplinary since you work at the intersection of art, food, science, and technology. How did you first discover the connection of working across these disciplines?

I’m an artist first and foremost, but I’m very curious about the sciences. That curiosity drives the way that my mind works when I’m thinking through making artwork and all the things that I’m conceiving creatively that I want to materialize in the world. And then I’m also very food motivated. It just almost seemed like a natural coalescence of art, food, science, and culture. It all just came together when I was doing works that are rooted in bio art or in sci-art, eco-art, where it’s science forward.

I’m approaching a lot of the things that I’m doing in the same way that I’m working through doing something in the kitchen and I’m following a recipe. To me, working out of a lab or a science space is not any different than following a recipe. You have your sets of ingredients, your tools, and your methodology, you’re following a series of steps, and voila, you’re left with whatever the final product or output may be. That was like my introduction to familiarizing myself with these unfamiliar science spaces because I’m an artist working in an interdisciplinary way.

I’m not entering these spaces as someone who’s fully trained and has the language and the technique and all these things. But I’ve built that repertoire over the years. And it’s one of the ways that helped me break down those barriers, almost like my own imposter syndrome of working in these spaces—It’s not any different than me putting something together in my kitchen. Once I break things down that way, in my mind, it makes it more accessible.

Often, I’m talking to people who haven’t come across this idea of bio art or working with food or any of these like biological materials or in a scientific way. In the production of contemporary fine art, I’m breaking it down to almost small bites, (no pun intended). It demystifies how inaccessible science might seem to be and it makes it more accessible to people as viewers, as audiences and to engage with the work. Making all these spaces accessible has also been a driving force in my work. And sometimes it’s just as simple as to distill the work and to talk about it in ways that there’s almost like this universality to the understanding and the language.

Everyone knows how to do something in the kitchen. We all have to eat. So, when you start to mirror these relationships, it just clicks, and it makes sense. I don’t want to invalidate the work that scientists do, and the importance of what they’re doing by kind of bringing it down to this nominal and rudimentary level. But I just think about the context of my work and what I’m doing, and it helps it to be more palatable. And so naturally, the culture and the art and all these things come together very easily, because when I’m working and making these very culturally specific foods, then it just ties everything together.

I love the idea of making it more accessible because there can be a gender imbalance in science and tech as well.  

I think gender imbalances play in all aspects of these spaces. Even just thinking about the domestic sphere when we’re thinking about food and cooking and often where the labor falls and some of these are cultural nuances. It’s just kind of the patriarchy. I think that unfortunately, all of these spaces are gendered, and these disciplines are gendered, but it’s just how we break these barriers and break these boundaries and invite others to join in that change. It’s small changes, but it is overall a collective change over time.

لو يذكر الزيتون غارسهُ، لصار الزيت دمعاً  | If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them…Their Oil would become Tears. Jude Abu Zaineh. Vinyl collage. 34’x 16’. 2022. (after Mahmoud Darwish) Installation shot from solo exhibition, In the Presence of Absence, image courtesy of Art Windsor-Essex.

Your 2022 exhibition In the Presence of Absence at the Art Gallery of Windsor [Now Art Windsor-Essex], curated by Noor Alé, explores your relationship with Palestine through archival images, literature, and cultural traditions. Can you speak more about your thought process around this exhibition and how it addresses belonging, diaspora, selfhood, and culture?

I think especially now, in hindsight, given both the political and physical aggressions that are happening in Palestine, I don’t think the work collectively reads that much differently. I just think that their level of potency has changed. It’s a really unfortunate thing for me when my work becomes extremely relevant because of these circumstances. Of course, we all want to make work that’s important and relevant and something [that can] create some meaning and maybe enact some change or whatever it may be. It’s just happening for all the most awful reasons. 

A lot of the pieces in the show were very much about building accessibility and community and thinking about representation and even education about the topic of Palestine, Palestinian identity, and the Palestinian experience, both from my own personal and direct lived experiences as a Palestinian and all the stories that I’ve inherited and carried throughout my life—My family and my lineage and just some of the atrocities that they’ve also directly experienced sort of get passed down. And I was trying to reconcile that relationship with a place that is my home that I connect with on so many levels, yet it is a place that I am exiled from, that my family’s exiled from.

We were forcibly displaced like many Palestinians, it’s unfortunately also a story that’s too common, sadly. And it was a lot of work about that longing for a place that exists that yet feels very out of touch because of all these racial and political boundaries that are so misplaced and so misinformed. It attempted to connect and reconcile that relationship but also invite others in the community who were feeling this sense of home and belonging and longing for a home that once was that may never be.

There is also a lot of nostalgia running through in my practice. I mean, just overall, but I think it was a beautiful opportunity for me to exercise that muscle, which was fun and equally heartbreaking. And I think right now I’m looking at it through this lens of heartbreak because of everything that’s happening.

Hunā wa hunāk (here and there) | هنا و هناك. Jude Abu Zaineh Petri dishes, digital prints 15’ x 18.’ 2022.
Installation shot from solo exhibition, In the Presence of Absence, image courtesy of Art Windsor-Essex.

I was particularly excited about one piece in the show, Hunā wa hunāk. I made this series of Petri dishes and put out a call for photographs for people who belong to the diaspora from the Southwest Asian and North African region, to submit any archival photos or photos that meant something to them about their respective homes and families. There is a lot of intersectional understanding and solidarity in terms of these exiled experiences and this hybrid identity of belonging and not belonging to more than one place. That also became this beautiful exercise of building community and sharing stories, and it was very wholesome and healing. All of these things are as equally heartbreaking as they are poetic.

That particular work meant so much to me because it was an invitation to others who are not in the mainstream narrative and especially not in these cultural institutional spaces. It’s not the type of audience who are typically at the forefront and who are represented. It was also very powerful to have people come into the exhibition and become a part of the work. I think it all boils back to what we were talking about earlier with your first question in terms of accessibility and representation.

tend to grow (watermelons). Jude Abu Zaineh. Varying glass tubes and gases, electrodes. 12’ x 30.’2022. Installation shots from group show, She Bends: Redefining Neon Legacy; Museum of Glass, Washington. Photos by Michael Valiquette.

You have recently taken the neon art world by storm. I was wondering if you could expand more about your neon practice and how you reference Palestinian symbols of resistance like watermelons, olive branches, and Arabic calligraphy. What first drew you to neon as a medium?

I’ve always been fascinated by neon as a medium and I’m very tactile. I love the sensory experience of physically making my work and handling my own work. And being involved in the process of making it and understanding the material in every way that I can.  

I think that I was thinking through language, the nuances of language, translations, and failures of translation, especially in the context of the East meets West journey. How again, there are barriers because of language, miscommunications, and misunderstandings. And sometimes in those tensions, there can be something wholesome and very human and a beautiful way to connect. I have made many Arabic calligraphy and text-based works communicating the nuances of language and sometimes like these funny little mishaps that happen in language.

بتهون(الماء بيافا) | Bit-hoon (this too shall pass // Yaffa waterscape) Jude Abu Zaineh. Argon in clear glass tubes, electrodes, transformer, handmade artist frame 36” x 29” x 5”  2023. Installation shot by Michael Valiquette.

The natural progression was that it makes sense to make these pieces that are text-based out of neon because neon at its most basic level is a communicative material. How we engage with it in the public sphere is through signage, and usually, it’s communicating some form of action like, “Come in, We’re Open” or a business name, and it’s usually very tied to capitalism and consumerism. And I love the idea of taking these expectations of a medium and using it to talk about and convey these very intimate and personal experiences that are on the opposite end of the spectrum; it’s not about this commercial usage. It’s like this vulnerability and intimacy that is also being put on display. I just also love the tensions of using that specific medium in this way. 

But neon is a tricky discipline or material to work with because it relies on a mentor and mentee relationship to learn the craft and the practice and hopefully become an expert in some capacity. There’s a big commitment. It’s also historically an industry that is white male dominant. And so, there are also barriers to entry in place in that you can’t just go into an art and craft store and buy the materials and buy the tools that you need and just on a whim start playing around and seeing what happens. It’s not that accessible. Long story short, I knocked on a bunch of doors and I was turned away—It was very frustrating.

I wanted to make the work myself and I couldn’t find someone who would take me on, even as an apprentice or in whatever capacity where I could just go in and do it myself. [I didn’t want to] come up with the idea and pay someone to fabricate it for me. It just felt like such a disconnect from the way that I work and the stories that I was trying to convey in my work.

I ended up going all the way to San Francisco and I was based in Windsor at the time. And now in hindsight, I’m so glad I was so stubborn and didn’t take no for an answer. I just kept trying and trying. Anyway, I ended up meeting this amazing neon bender, Meryl Pataky. She was just a wealth of information and knowledge and was keen about opening her studio doors to someone like me, someone so opposite of what the industry norm is. She’s the co-founder of this collective called She Bends and their whole mandate is to make neon accessible, especially to women and femmes, and people who are typically underrepresented in this discipline and industry.

It’s like the stars weirdly aligned and I got to spend some time with her in San Francisco, learning the basics and trying to figure out my way around this difficult medium. I just couldn’t get enough of it. And I kept at it and kept making work over the years in the space of neon. I’m grateful that I’ve had some amazing experiences since then [with] my work being curated into some shows that are all neon-based. 

I think it’s also like a metaphor and reflective of Palestinian resilience. And the determination in the face of all of these boundaries and barriers like literal apartheid walls and sieges. There’s still this really beautiful display of humanity and resilience and will to do the best you can with what little you have. And to me, neon has been such a reflection of that.

tend to grow (watermelons). Jude Abu Zaineh. Varying glass tubes and gases, electrodes. 12’ x 30.’2022. Installation shots from group show, She Bends: Redefining Neon Legacy; Museum of Glass, Washington. Photos by Michael Valiquette.

Then in terms of actual symbols I’ve been working with, I made this watermelon series in 2022. I’m very proud of this work, but I’m just so sad that it’s even more potent and relevant and needed today. The watermelon is such an important symbol for Palestinians and Palestinian resistance and liberation because the Zionist state has made the Palestinian flag illegal in all of its forms. And so, the watermelon became a stand-in for the Palestinian flag because it represents and mirrors the same colors of the Palestinian flag, red, green, white, and black. Artists and advocates started using the watermelon instead of the Palestinian flag as a symbol for protest advocacy liberation, and all social justice. 

Six months ago, I think it read differently than the work does today, which is also an interesting thing. In arts and culture, meanings are constantly changing. I think the meaning of the watermelon will always be tied to social justice and not just for Palestinians, but again, collective liberation and justice for all the places and all of the people that have been ravaged by imperialism and greed and colonialism and white supremacy and so on.

FORMations, Installation shots from Southwest Seen; Museum London (2023). Photo by Shutter Studios, courtesy of Museum London.

Here in London, your installation FORMations, as part of Southwest Seen, consisted of film stills displayed on the exterior side of Museum London. Can you expand on FORMations and how it reflects the natural ecology of food and flora in the region through Petri dish culture and references to your cultural heritage?

This work was a process response to the lockdown of COVID and everything being in limbo for almost three years. I was kind of in this space of isolation. I was in a new country and program and just felt isolated from all the facets of life and community. One of the ways that I was trying to reconcile that was by going on a lot of walks and trying to familiarize myself with my new homestead in upstate New York.

This was also a response to all the social distancing and all the social isolation that we had to be in because a big part of my practice where I’m making things in Petri dishes revolves around community gatherings around food. I cook and host a traditional Palestinian spread of food for people and that becomes the first part of the process of how I make the Petri dishes. After, I document the growth and decay over time. Then, all those images make their way into these large kaleidoscopic installations, and they manifest and materialize in so many ways beyond that. 

The challenge at the time was replicating that without being able to gather with people. A lot of us turned to a lot of different hobbies and a lot of different things to keep sane during that time. And for me, it was going on a lot of walks. It was solitary and very isolating, but I felt connected to the spaces that I was occupying differently. I was paying a lot more attention to my surroundings. I went urban foraging and gathered whatever things I could find on the sidewalks. I was also thinking about what I was eating and how I could collect, swab, and use my own leftovers and different specimens from around me that I could then corroborate and include in the Petri dish cultures. All of these Petri dishes that I made in the process of creating formations also became like an archival footprint of the specific moment, place, and time. I was spending a few months in upstate New York and then I would go to different parts of Ontario, mostly between Toronto and Windsor and the 401 corridor. All these things that I had gathered made their way into the experimental film that you saw through the building at Museum London from the outside.

I was also very consciously thinking about the work of Ron Benner outside. He has this tended garden, As the Crow Flies. It’s this beautiful, colourful ecosystem and landscape that is right outside this beautiful pristine new building. I was thinking also about a lot of the colors of that natural ecosystem and how can I kind of mirror and reflect that a little bit in the work and see it as in conversation, the inside and the outside, the built environment with the natural environment.

Most recently, you co-curated a show ‘As I Find My Place’ with Farnoosh Talaee at The Next Contemporary, which focuses on personal and collective journeys of exile, migration, and adoption, focusing on placemaking and place(lessness). I was wondering if you could speak more about your process around curating this exhibition and how it first came together.

It was a collaborative effort between me and Farnoosh and it’s all about this feeling of reconciling with reality and all of these awful things that we’re trying to make sense of, politically, geographically, socially. We were trying to find artists who could occupy the space that we knew had the vocabulary of making work that was in dialogue with these collective journeys of exile and thinking about placemaking and placelessness, migration, all of these intense journeys of trying to belong, but also understanding that there’s this not belonging that’s thrust on many of us going through these experiences.

I feel like I have such a responsibility when I’m wearing my curator hat. What are the stories, people, and dialogues that we need to see that we’re not hearing enough of? I think those are questions that are constantly going through my mind and that I’m constantly grappling with. I think as an artist, and as a curator, I’m always thinking through how we break down these barriers and how we let more and more people in. I know for Farnoosh, that’s an important thing for her too, and in her space at The Next Contemporary she’s very deliberate about curating very thoughtful shows that touch on all these things in that representation is important in an intersectional way. Right from the [start], we were kind of speaking the same language and thinking about it similarly. There’s a responsibility to what we’re doing and that was at the forefront of this project.

We have a beautiful roster of artists [Participating artists include Ibrahim Abusitta, Hiba Abdallah, Saks Afridi, asmaa al-issa, Basil AlZeri, Nuveen Barwari, Rehab Nazzal, Parvin Peivandi, Maya Perry, and Larissa Sansour] and they’re all engaging with these topics in different ways with different material explorations and bringing their own respective histories and personal experiences about these feelings of longing and belonging and exile. Both the installation of the works, but also the power of each of these artists’ works individually and as a collective—it’s so powerful.

You can check out more of Jude Abu Zaineh’s work on her website and Instagram.

How to Stare at the Sun

Moira Hayes. Citrus 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

By Moira Hayes

Of all the things in life that are hard to look at, nothing has plagued me so acutely as the sight of a beautiful woman. When I see an attractive woman, I look away and I try not to look back. I’ve been asking my friends, my family, and random people in bars if they share this affliction. They don’t! So, why?

I’ve asked myself the following questions:

  • Am I just extremely shy?
  • Am I comparing myself?
  • Could it be Catholic guilt?
  • Do I feel embarrassed that I crave someone unattainable?

The answer is a resounding “Yes” to all of them. I am shy and I am comparing myself. My internalized homophobia, implanted at a young age by the Catholic education system, tricks my brain into believing that other queer people are unattainable entities, constantly out of reach. Light years away.

Step 1: Accept that you love the Sun.

For a long time, I felt like accepting that I was queer was admitting defeat. Yes, everyone who looked at me in high school as the token lesbian was right. Yes, any suspicions from my extended family were proven true. Yes, you got me, you are correct—I’m gay.

Winning is a learned skill that can only be achieved by a seasoned loser.

When I was in high school in the 2010s, queer communities emerged as an unavoidable presence in mainstream media. Huge shows like Glee, Pretty Little Liars, and Teen Wolf had queer characters. The widespread exposure to queerness was groundbreaking. Suddenly, it was very trendy to be gay.

In the showrunners’ attempt to keep up with this trend, queer characters were ushered into narratives to fill this new requirement. Unfortunately, it was also easy for writers to usher in the generational tragedy attached to the queer community, i.e. the AIDs crisis, or centuries of homophobia from both religion and state. Queer characters can’t just be characters, they always come with baggage. How else could the majority of (straight) viewers sympathize with them?

So, it kind of sucked. In her 2021 thesis work, Elizabeth Bradshaw explores this phenomenon in queer narratives:

“Punishing queer characters—through heartbreak, death, or overt punishments—is such a common device used in literature and film that it has earned its own nickname: Bury Your Gays. This trope dictates that when a same-gender love story is present, one of the characters must be destroyed in some way by the end of the story.”1

Step 2: Get burnt to a crisp for the first time.

The multiverse of acceptance and fan fiction can keep a sad, closeted teenager alive until real-world destruction inevitably grabs hold, but here’s the thing: I didn’t want to be destroyed. I wanted to win, but it didn’t come easy. Winning is a learned skill that can only be achieved by a seasoned loser.

I have lost many times. It turns out that accepting love also comes with accepting heartbreak. My personal queer narratives were less deadly than the fictional ones but were not by any means sunny.

My body of work Hey Sunshine! was conceived in the aftermath of a breakup. While it was initially helpful to attach a single person to the symbol of a Sun, it quickly gained greater meaning. I cast the Sun in my narratives opposite myself to embody everything in life that I cannot control, the actions and opinions of others, bad timing, unavoidable distance, and even the weather.

Moira Hayes. Spit! 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

I’ve accepted that all I can control are my own actions and reactions. I take responsibility and control of my own autonomy. I can choose to move forward or remain stagnant. Often, this invaluable introspection is achieved through hindsight.

In Spit! I invite destruction, disguised as love, into my life. Whilst damaging myself, I put my relationships with others at risk: my ability to communicate with others is obliterated, I drain all my energy until there’s nothing left, and all the light in my world is gone. By the end of the piece, my dependency on love relies on a single entity, and I’m burnt to a crisp.

Heartbreak sears like a sunburn. It stings until time has soothed it into a memory.

Step 3: Regroup, reflect, and slather yourself in sunscreen.

Self-reflection is one hell of a drug. Let’s talk about beautiful women again, starting with the female gaze.

I grew up experiencing a lot of anxiety around older women because I was always mistaken for a boy. My short hair and aversion to dresses led a lot of women to believe that I had walked into the wrong public washroom. I was ill-equipped as a child to navigate such a situation. (Recall that I am shy.)

I hated when people would question my gender, strangers comparing me to their preconceived images of a woman. (Recall that I am also comparing myself.) I grew contemptuous of the gendered answer because it ultimately aligned me with the perpetrator of my problem: other women.

Then comes the tidal wave of high school, plaid quilts, polo shirts, and a girl shrieking in the change room before gym class that none of us better be lesbians. Oh, good. That’s perfect. Something infinitely worse than being a girl who is routinely mistaken as a boy—being a girl who liked other girls.

Moira Hayes. Birth. 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

In Birth, a run-on sentence emphasizes the sudden and unexpected rush of falling in love. Detailing a strenuous morning, starting by going to work. The narrative winds into a full-body experience until I answer the call, ushering forward a new possibility of love. Behind the words, runs a telephone cord as a reference to communication while also signifying an umbilical cord.

Despite my gut instinct to look away, brought on by previous hurt and historical evidence that people can be cruel, I choose to pick up the phone. Love isn’t a game, but that’s never stopped me from trying to win.

Step 4: Get burnt again, probably.

Citrus bemoans the heartbreak at the end of a relationship. The narrative in this piece is punctuated with the image of a Sun, “the fruits of my labour, on fire in the heat of your…” The piece is accusatory and the background yellow layer of vinyl wrinkles outward, its words lifting at their edges and repeating themselves to not be forgotten.

I have lost many times.

Moira Hayes. Hotter than Hell. 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Step 5: Acquire sunglasses.

I dated someone in university who kept a semi-nude photo of a famous lesbian as her phone lock screen. I admired the boldness, despite the extremity. Not only is it something I would never do, but it’s also something I never considered I could do.

When you type the word Cool into iMessage, the first suggested emoji that comes up is the smiley face wearing sunglasses. The nice thing about sunglasses is that nobody can see where you’re looking, you just look cool.

In Hotter than Hell, I adopt a skeptical view of the Sun’s dramatics. I breeze by the grandiose envisioning of Hell and brush off the Sun’s opinion. I’m over the dramatics of a relationship, the theatre of winning or losing emotionally. I push my sunglasses further up my nose.

Staring into the Sun for extended periods of time will blind you, no doubt. Just plain old looking into the Sun is so intimidating that we invented sunglasses to shield ourselves; it’s self-care. It could be designer or dollar store self-care, but either way you look cool.

How does one stare at the Sun? Exposure therapy with an equal measure of self-preservation.

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 pair of sunglasses for confidence 
  • 1 light year (distance and time) for perspective’s sake
  • 1 bottle of SPF 30 sunscreen for pragmatic reasoning
  • Acceptance of heartbreak, for when the sunsets
  • Acceptance of yourself, to see yourself through and through and through and through

Good luck!

PSA: Please don’t stare at the sun during a total eclipse without proper eye protection.

This feature can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

  1. Bradshaw, Elizabeth. The Male Gaze and the Female Gays: Reimagining Queer Narratives in 2021,Texas Scholar Works, 2021, 58. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/44fe4abb-97ed-44d4-a81d-dd8512109074/content ↩︎