Opening Reception: Friday March 7th 2014 7pm
Location: InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto, ON, M6J 2Y8, CANADA
Opening hours: Wed. & Sat. 12-8pm, Thurs. & Fri. 12-6pm
Free and open to the public
Sayeh Sarfaraz’s latest exhibition, created for Le Labo and InterAccess, continues her investigations into social movements and uprisings. Combining projection, newsreel Youtube videos, and sculptural objects, Sarfaraz bases her interdisciplinary installation on specific historical events from her native country: Iran – accession to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, repression measures regarding demonstrations after his re-election and the accession to power of president Hassan Rohani.
Globalisation and new technologies help inform new dimensions of the artist’s recent work. With increasing ubiquity and proliferation of social media technologies, a smaller group of people can have a much bigger impact on a large part of the world’s population, bringing about an abundance of new interactions, both remote and in proximity, as well as the mobilization of what was once thought to be unlikely events.
Mixing immersive video projections depicting the world of current political events with sculptural imagery from worlds of fantasy, the artist situates our encounter with these movements in particular ways. Sarfaraz understands the idea and day-to-day experience of conflict as not the exclusive property of a specific nation or country.
The public is guided through a journey from unconscious innocent memories to a social reflection on political events. Through the interactions between the fictional world of childhood and the harsh reality of uprising, Sarfaraz lures the audience into what is at first a naïve look into conflict, that unravels as a social and political reflection around the nature of resistance.
– Biography of the artist –
Sayeh Sarfaraz was born in Shiraz, the cultural capital of Iran. She graduated from the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg (France). She has recently immigrated to Canada and lives in Montreal since 2008.
Sayeh Sarfaraz’s creative world draws its inspiration from the political events relating to her home country’s government. The constant anxiety of conflict, censorship, and the repression of the people of Iran is relayed in the naive language of a plastic toy collection and drawings. Relating directly to her wandering and exile, the figurines, haphazardly staged along childlike patterns, experience dramatic situations such as violent struggles, bombardments, jailings. This distortion between play and politics highlights the injustice of the manipulation of the weak, the gulf between great powers, and a people’s struggle for freedom. By a power transfer, the artist becomes the mistress of her own world as an outlet where her thoughts can freely unfold. Caroline Andrieux