The Seeker & The Search

As Judith Miller describes, this body of work “construct labyrinths in several dimensions, creating corridors which invite wandering, without a particular destination or purpose other than simply to be in the space, to be with it. The search for meaning which began in an ancient poem widens to include the traditions and art forms of several cultures. The Seeker and the Search are familiar archetypes.

This journey has starting points, intricate guidelines, pathways, shadows, open spaces. As light and the seasons change, the script shifts, the shadows dance, and the map becomes many-dimensioned. The text, the first map, has opened out, is now elusive, casting shadows, resonating into all those places of desire, where nothing—and everything—are to be found.”

Installation at Kitchener City Hall by artist Soheila Esfahani

“Mapping of a quest”, mixed media on Mylar, 42’x 2.5’, 2008, Rotunda Gallery, Kitchener, ON

Installation at Kitchener City Hall by artist Soheila Esfahani

“Mapping of a quest”, mixed media on Mylar, 42’x 2.5’, 2008, Rotunda Gallery, Kitchener, ON

“Mapping of a quest”, detail, mixed media on Mylar, 42’x 2.5’, 2008, Rotunda Gallery, Kitchener, ON

Installation at Kitchener City Hall by artist Soheila Esfahani

“Mapping of a quest”, detail, mixed media, on Mylar, 42’x 2.5’, 2008, Rotunda Gallery, Kitchener, ON

Installation at Kitchener City Hall by artist Soheila Esfahani

“Mapping of a quest”, detail, cutout Mylar, 42’x 2.5’, 2008, Rotunda Gallery, Kitchener, ON

“The seeker and the search I”, Acrylic on Mylar, 22’ 8”x 43”, 2008, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Red Head Gallery by artist Soheila Esfahani

“The seeker and the search I”, detail, Acrylic on Mylar, 22’ 8”x 43”, 2008, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Red Head Gallery by artist Soheila Esfahani

“The seeker and the search II”, Pen on Mylar, 14’ 5”x 43”, 2008, , Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Red Head Gallery by artist Soheila Esfahani

“The seeker and the search II”, detail, Pen on Mylar, 14’ 5”x 43”, 2008, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Red Head Gallery by artist Soheila Esfahani

“From mine and place to the elements is my desire”, Cutout Mylar, 11’x 38”, 2008, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Red Head Gallery by artist Soheila Esfahani

“From mine and place to the elements is my desire”, detail, Cutout Mylar, 11’x 38”, 2008 Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

“My state has gone beyond every desire and yearning”, Starched fabric, approx. 17’ long, 2008, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Red Head Gallery by artist Soheila Esfahani

“My state has gone beyond every desire and yearning”, detail, Starched fabric, approx. 17’ long, 2008, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, ON

Installation at Robert Langon Art Gallery, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo by artist Soheila Esfahani

“The seeker and the search IV”, Mixed media on glass, various sizes, 2008, Robert Langen Art Gallery, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON

Installation at Robert Langon Art Gallery, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo by artist Soheila Esfahani

“The seeker and the search IV”, Mixed media on glass, various sizes, 2008, Robert Langen Art Gallery, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON

Installation at Robert Langon Art Gallery, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo by artist Soheila Esfahani

“The seeker and the search IV”, Mixed media on glass, various sizes, 2008, Robert Langen Art Gallery, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON

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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