Pattern (dis)Placement

Pattern (dis)Placement aims to destabilize the origin of culture and reconstruct Homi Bhabha’s “the third space of in-betweeness”: a site of cultural translation, where locations of cultures are negotiated and new narratives are adapted and hybridized. In this body of work, Esfahani focuses on the Willow Pattern as a constructed cultural fable and simultaneously emphasizes and disrupts familiar collected objects in order to dissolve traditional boundaries between cultures.

04 Soheila Esfahani My Grandmother Had One mixed media on collected ceramic plates 2019

My Grandmother Had One, Mixed media on collected ceramic plates, 2019

07 Soheila Esfahani My Grandmother Had One mixed media on collected ceramic plates 2019 detail 3

My Grandmother Had One, detail, Mixed media on collected ceramic plates, 2019

06 Soheila Esfahani My Grandmother Had One mixed media on collected ceramic plates 2019 detail 2

My Grandmother Had One, detail, Mixed media on collected ceramic plates, 2019

05 Soheila Esfahani My Grandmother Had One mixed media on collected ceramic plates 2019 detail 1

My Grandmother Had One, detail, Mixed media on collected ceramic plates, 2019

08 Soheila Esfahani Variations on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25 custom ceramic decal on ceramic plates 2019

Variation on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25, custom ceramic decals on ceramic plates, 2019

09 Soheila Esfahani Variations on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25 custom ceramic decal on ceramic plates 2019 detail 1

Variation on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25, custom ceramic decals on ceramic plates, 2019

11 Soheila Esfahani Variations on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25 custom ceramic decal on ceramic plates 2019 detail 3

Variation on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25, custom ceramic decals on ceramic plates, 2019

10 Soheila Esfahani Variations on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25 custom ceramic decal on ceramic plates 2019 detail 2

Variation on Willow Pattern Birds 1-25, custom ceramic decals on ceramic plates, 2019

01 Soheila Esfahani Birds-Patterns disPlaced 3D printed Resin 2019

Birds: Pattern (dis)Placed, 3D printed Resin, 2019

02 Soheila Esfahani Birds-Patterns disPlaced 3D printed Resin 2019 detail 1

Birds: Pattern (dis)Placed, 3D printed Resin, 2019

03 Soheila Esfahani Birds-Patterns disPlaced 3D printed Resin 2019 detail 2

Birds: Pattern (dis)Placed, 3D printed Resin, 2019

fense

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Fence, glass paint on photograph, 2019

pergola

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Pagoda ,glass paint on photograph, 2019

three men on bridge

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Three Men on Bridge, glass paint on photograph, 2019

two birds

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Two Birds, glass paint on photograph, 2019

weeping willow

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Weeping Willow, glass paint on photograph, 2019

boat

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Boat, glass paint on photograph, 2019

orange tree

Seven Must Have Elements of Willow Pattern: Orange Tree, glass paint on photograph, 2019

CURATORIAL PROJECT

Nagotiating Culture

curated by Soheila Esfahani

Michael ManChoi Chow, Andrea Filiatrault, Elizabeth Forrest, Wen Li (also Assistant Curator), Nancy Peng, Barry Smylie

October 31- November 10, 2024
Flex Space @ 44 Gaukel St, Kitchener, Ontario

In a multicultural society such as Canada, many people live in-between cultures and inevitably participate in cultural translation. Within the framework of cultural theory, the act of translation is the negotiation arising from encounters of various social groups with different cultural traditions. Furthermore, cultural translation destabilizes the notion of an originary culture and opens up the space of negotiation called the third space.* This curatorial project asks artists to reflect on how they define culture and what it means to live in the third space and negotiate cultural variance. If artists are cultural producers, how do they represent culture in their work? What are some of the ways we connect to other cultures and possibly live in liminal or in-between spaces?

* The terms cultural translation and the third space are coined by Homi K. Bhabha in his book The Location of Culture.

CURATORIAL PROJECT

In Search of a Loss of Self: The Language of Alterity

curated by Soheila Esfahani and Mélika Hashemi

September 20 to December 7, 2024

McIntosh Gallery, Western University, London, Ontario

Expanding on Edward Said’s original thesis in Orientalism (1978), which focused primarily on the colonial [re]imagining of the East, In Search of a Loss of Self: The Language of Alterity is a journey of self-discovery. First and second-generation Muslim-Canadian artists and scholars, Soheila Esfahani and Melika Hashemi perform a survey of the McIntosh Gallery Permanent Collection, yet fail to see themselves reflected in collected works or under database search keywords. Consequently, they argue that Islamic art and artists fall into the cracks of collection acquisition practices.

As Legacy Russell writes in her manifesto, Glitch Feminism (2020), “In the moments of glitch, a break occurs in the expected flow, and in this break, it is possible to create an intervention, to slip new codes into the system and explore freely in the cracks”. In search of a loss of self, the co-curators realised ‘loss’ didn’t really mean they were at a loss, and not all ‘gaps’ meant they fell through the cracks–rather, they had more space to explore freely. This process allows Esfahani and Hashemi to explore the possibilities of reconstructions, creating new meanings and interpretations through a poetic gesture–or code– that calls upon the collective to confront erasure and condemnation.

Esfahani and Hashemi employ the punk methodology of ‘bricolage’ to look forwards and backwards, bringing together seemingly disparate ideas into a Post-Orientalist re-storying of works from the McIntosh Gallery Permanent Collection. Punk methodology in curation is examined in detail by global art curator, Sara Raza, in her book Punk Orientalism: The Art of Rebellion (2022), described as the use of tropes to collapse transcultural and intergenerational ideas that at times exist behind barriers. This exhibition includes interventions and collaborations using archival and historical materials, and artist-driven accounts and responses, to create bricolages relating to language, and art that revolves around language, especially relating to migratory and grief aesthetics.

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