Moozhan Ahmadzadegan is an artist based on the unceded and traditional territory of the Syilx Okanagan People, also known as Kelowna, BC. His artistic interests center on themes of queer culture, Iranian diaspora, and cultural in-betweenness. This spectrum of ideas serve as a point of access to deepen his understanding of contemporary social issues. Ahmadzadegan’s practice encompasses painting, screenprinting, textiles, and installation practices. Through these mediums, he investigates how we respond and engage with the colonial, social, and cultural structures that shape identity on personal, national, and public scales.

In his exhibition, there hidden, far beneath and long ago, he examines traditional Iranian art such as Persian miniatures, patterns, rugs, architecture, and poetry, and reimagines them through a queer lens. This approach symbolically carves out space for queer narratives within historically heteronormative frameworks, addressing the erasure of queer identities in various contexts. These themes resonate with the increased condemnation of queer people felt globally, including within his immediate community, in so-called Canada, and by the present government of Iran—the contemporary source of his influences.

By queering traditional Persian visuals and narratives, Moozhan reinterprets, reimagines, and reconfigures these elements to create new meanings and queer-inspired narratives. Persian carpets are reimagined through the interplay of materials, contradicting a carpet’s original intentions. A carpet is wall mounted, scaled-down through printmaking, and its tassels are elongated with 15’ rope. With no set meaning, these objects offer the potential for new narratives. As designer and architect Jaffer Kolb describes it, “[queerness is] an open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances, resonances, lapses, and excesses of meaning” (Pavka). With that in mind, Moozhan attempts to disrupt these traditional art forms and bring them into a contemporary context. there hidden, far beneath and long ago emphasizes creative play and experimentation, allowing Moozhan to move away from overtly literal interpretations and embrace fluidity. His work serves as an entry point for exploring critical dialogues surrounding queer identity, diaspora, and cultural hybridity. Through this approach, he invites viewers to engage with these themes in nuanced and open ways.

Citations:

Pavka, Evan. “What Do We Mean By Queer Space?” Azure Magazine, 29 June 2020, https://www.azuremagazine.com/article/what-do-we-mean-by-queer-space/.

This project was made possible with support from Canada Council for the Arts.

About the Artist:

Moozhan Ahmadzadegan is an emerging artist based on the unceded and traditional territory of the Syilx Okanagan people, commonly known as the Okanagan. He received a BFA from the University of British Columbia Okanagan with a Major in Visual Arts and a Minor in Art History and Visual Culture in 2019. His work explores Iranian diasporic and queer themes, most often engaging the mediums of painting, screenprinting, textiles, and, more recently, installation practices.

Moozhan is grateful for the opportunity to work, play and create on the lands that have been tended to by the people of Sylix Okanagan Nation and to present this artwork as a guest on the lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̣wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Moozhan Ahmadzadegan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moozhans_art/

Digitized Programming:

Creative Access Audio Tour:

Creative Access Audio Tour of the exhibition

Text transcripts and audio are available

Site map:

A PDF containing art work titles and materials. Two tactile maps have been created and are available at grunt gallery. Information about the 2D and tactile maps are available within the Creative Access Audio Tour and were used as a reference tool for self-guided movement through the show. Contact archives@grunt.ca to learn more about the tactile map.

Virtual Walkthrough:

Publication catalogue:

Coming soon.

CONTENT WARNING: 

This exhibition includes themes of loss, grief, mourning, and substance use. 

Hǫǫsǫǫ dìik’analta’ de’ (take care of yourself).

As a way to process grief and loss, Teresa Vander Meer-Chasse has created a literal and metaphorical shelter that has been reclaimed, reconstructed, and revitalized. Having found herself in deep internal conflict following the loss of yet another family member to substance use, Vander Meer-Chase invites you to enter Nee’ Shah | Our House to witness the importance of awakening sleeping materials as a method of navigating loss. Through the processing of natural materials with her family, Vander Meer-Chasse attempts to empower you to witness universal cycles of loss, grief, and mourning.

Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé reflects on the exhibition:

“Nee’ Shah | Our House began while pursuing my Masters of Fine Arts at Concordia University under the guidance and influence of my Grandma Marilyn John. The exhibition explores themes of grief, loss, and remembrance. By way of patches, I translate text I have sent to family members that I have lost or are currently experiencing substance use disorder. I do not personally experience substance use disorder; I am only a witness and a loved one to many that are experiencing or have experienced substance use disorder. Symbols, colours, and patterns that represent my Upper Tanana, Frisian, and French families and communities are present throughout the tent and act as protection, grounding, and connection. Natural materials were collected and processed collaboratively as a family and became a daily ritual in my self-growth and grief recovery.

A special tsin’’įį choh (big thank you) to everyone that has stood by my side as I grieve the recent passings of my Grandma Marilyn John, Brother Stewart Chassé, Uncle Patrick Johnny, Uncle Peter van der Meer, and Cousin Duncan Stephen.

I have been blessed with an abundance of teachers throughout my life, who share with me teachings, memories, stories, and language. This journey would not have been possible without contributors and supporters. Tsin’įį choh to my Ancestors, my family, my friends, my moosehide and fish tanning teachers, my Upper Tanana language teachers, and White River First Nation.”

Please note that the exhibition opening will be an alcohol-free event and a variety of non-alcoholic beverages will be available for free.

About the Artist:

Dineh k’èh Ddhälh kit Nelnah shǫǫsį’, nòodlèey k’èh Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé shǫǫsį’. Ts’òogot Gaay ts’änh diht’eh. Tthèe Tsa’ Niik ts’änh diht’eh. Amiskwaciy Wâskahikan dänh shih hǫǫłįį. Kwanlin dänh nìidhihshąąn. METULIYE Camosak tah huht’įįn. Shnąą Ttthìi’ Elgąy mǫǫsį’. Shnąą wunąą stsǫǫ Stsaay Ch’idzǜü’ mǫǫsì’, wunąą Nii’ii Jaiy, wunąą Laats’iih’ol, wunąą Gàan Dànihtl’įǫ. Shnąą wuta’ sts’aay Sid van der Meer moosi’. Shta’ Wilfred Chassé mǫǫsį’. Shta’ wunaa stsǫǫ Helen Chassé mǫǫsį’. Shta’ wuta’ sts’aay Louis Chassé mǫǫsį’.

Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé is a proud Niisüü Member of White River First Nation from Beaver Creek, Yukon and Alaska. She currently resides on Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ Territories in Victoria, British Columbia, although she travels home to the Yukon as often as she can. She is an Upper Tanana, Frisian, and French visual artist and curator. Her visual arts practice is invested in the awakening of sleeping materials and the reanimation of found objects that are rooted in understandings of identity. She has recently been exploring themes of grief, loss, family, community, and relationships in her installation works.

Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé’s Instagram page: www.instagram.com/teresasvc

Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé’s Website: www.teresavandermeerchasse.ca

Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ddhalhkitnelnah

Photo taken from inside of Taathǜh courtesy of Teresa Vander Meer-Chassé and Mike Thomas.

Digitized Programming:

Publication catalogue:

Designed by Vicky Lum and printed by Moniker Press, free, physical copies of the catalogue are available in the gallery while supplies last.

A PDF version with images is available to explore.
An Alternative-Text version is available to explore: Plain text, Audio.

Creative Access Audio Tour:

Transcript: HTML (open in new tab), Plain text (formatted for screen readers)

Site map:

A PDF containing art work titles and materials. This information is also available within the creative access audio tour. A tactile map was created for this exhibition and is available in gallery. For more information, contact archives@grunt.ca

Virtual Walkthrough:

In this exhibition, Mapping Ancestry through Sound, Space and Time, artist Stina Baudin animates her Haitian ancestry through research and reconstructed stories around cultural emblems, knowledge, time and land. Baudin’s previous work has drawn from statistical examinations of Black time and migration, visualized as large textured weavings; in this exhibition she focuses the depth of her time in the creation of her own versions of ‘Drapo Vodou’ (known in English as Vodou Flags). Baudin positions colonial time as an ideology that, “as the structural backbone of slavery, dominating cultural norms, informed by race-making and capital, dictated how time should be used”. Colonial time imposed on Black and Indigenous lands becomes a weapon, disrupting not only the rhythms and rituals related to traditional ways of being, but also long established relationality with the land and its usage.

The works in this exhibition are a project of revolutionary artifacts; Drapo Vodou is linked to both the sacred world as well as the Haitian Revolution (1791 – 1804). Drapo Vodou played a significant role in the revolution, like Black American quilts, they carried hidden encoded messages and connected communities in resistance. The act of creating these works for Baudin acknowledges the difficulty in gathering lost familial knowledge as generations continue; “our past is a feat that isn’t always accessible by conversation, returns to our native lands or through extensive pre-existing archives. The documents and ledgers of our stories are fragmented versions of tales I am constantly attempting to piece back together through my fibre and multidisciplinary work.”

Baudin’s exhibition includes soundscapes in collaboration with Montréal/Tiotia’ke-based sound artist, musician and composer Markus Floats, whose live performances include accompaniment by specific sampling or reading from Black literary canon, with a focus on exploring themes of repetition, obscurity, and visibility. Join us for Markus’ performance at 7:30 PM opening night, followed by a talk-back session with Stina.

Stina Baudin’s Website: https://stinabaudin.com/

Stina Baudin’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ssteenaa/

Markus Floats Bandcamp: https://markusfloats.bandcamp.com/music

Markus Floats Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markus.floats

Digitized Programming:

Virtual Walkthrough:

360° digital tour of the exhibition. Link opens on matterport.com
Click play on the video below to explore a 360° tour of the exhibition.

Images courtesy of Stina Baudin and Savannah Faith Jackson.

Reflections on Pursuing Decolonial Time

Written by Curator, Whess Harman.

Mapping Ancestry Through Sound, Space and Time moves through ideas of decolonial time; a thing I know and crave but am often instinctively outside of. There is no one fixed definition of exactly what decolonial time is, despite the enthusiasm the phrase inspires. More often than not for myself, “decolonial time” and my particular brand of “ndn time”, is often the admission of having been railroaded into conceding to and compromising for what is more and more pervasively present colonial measure of time: a thing that is linear, definitive, tracked, monolithic, production driven, institutionally mediated, violently enforced and always hungry to eat into the social and leisure time where relationships are built. This runs contrary to the ideals of decolonial time; social time and deep time that is not scrutinized, that languishes and rolls in and through the day and conversations; unhurried and urgent moments alike where unexpected connection can bubble up when everyone’s guard is relaxed or the trust exists to fumble through together. This time is often wedged between periods of vexations in colonial time: I didn’t send that email. I didn’t submit that writing. The work is not done. I failed to make my time measurably productive.

We had ambitions in the early stages of this exhibition; there were hopes of doing a book club. We applied for funding to offer a weaving workshop to other Black community members. There was talk of a vessel for offerings, a place to deposit some of the complicated, fractalling grief that can be felt within and around us to bring some order through ritualizing it. These things were not possible despite our best efforts and now live in the dissolving edges of “imagine if” and “if only”.

For many artists I’ve worked with in the past few years, this tenuousness between putting up an exhibition, which should be something a little bit serious but a lot celebratory, has been difficult to mediate against deadlines and schedules lost in the uncertain deluge of overwhelming grief against seemingly unstoppable and inexplicably cruel acts of violence being enacted not only in Palestine, but also still in liberated Haiti, in the Congo, Sudan and decolonial struggle across the globe. Match that with the pressure to make everything mean something, to connect it all, or be thoughtful enough to speak to all parts of a question–creating art becomes a tremendous thing to ask. Atop it all? “Be professional” even if the human thing you want to do, the only thing that helps in some moments, is to scream and cry at the top of your lungs. The reassurance I’ve had in facing this collection of ambitions and expectations that are both external and internalized is remembering that this whole thing we’re going through is collective, global and distinctly colonial. We, colonized and displaced peoples across the globe, did not make these circumstances for ourselves. So our meetings will have miscommunications, some awkward moments and crying and we’ll still hold onto what matters; the dreaming.

Stina held onto the dreaming; her dedicated and deep work shines through in the craftsmanship of these pieces. The voodoo flags in this exhibition feel timely as they are derived from a lineage of revolutionary work that comes from her Haitian ancestry. She describes the flags as similarly aligned to the history of resistance within Black quilting practices, used to subversively carry messages that could be transmitted beyond the periphery of the colonial eye for libratory and revolutionary purpose. The Haitian Revolution, a rebellion lasting twelve years between 1791 and 1804, is often cited as the only successful slave rebellion in recorded history. There’s power in that. There’s lineage in that. There’s also nostalgia in it–while organizing against colonial tyranny has become more globalized online, we lack the tactile remnants of radical transmissions produced in the domicile. These works feel both an ode and a call to honor the practices that came before, while reflecting how the image of “productivity” was used to obscure crucial tactical messaging; a Black body sewing is not outwardly the same threat as the resistance it’s messaging to. It has not been a small piece of the work for Stina to think through the formation of the Black body as a resource for colonial extraction both historically and contemporaneously.

With this work, I am reminded of a series of workshops created by Syrus Marcus Ware, where he reframed art-builds for protests and demonstrations instead as an event titled, “In Movement: Training Sessions for Freedom Fighters”. This was done to address that when advertised as an art build, the greatest response repeatedly came from racialized queer and femme folks in our communities. This project pointed to the time-consuming and invisibilized labour often namelessly used to aestheticize movements as being deserving of examination and respect. And too, a valuable space to build community. While there have not been names found in Stina’s growing knowledge of this moment of voodoo flags, the labour of those ancestors is at least honoured in this exhibition and her making was in communion with them. If the images we use matter, so do the hands that make them. I think of this in relation to the collaborative sound works produced by Markus Floats; in these works are embedded the voices of Black thinkers and writers who have shaped the work of both Markus and Stina. Again; there is a power here that is beyond colonial imagining, and a lineage.

I haven’t defined succinctly what decolonial time is or how it can operate in an institution (in my opinion, echoes of it can and reformation will still not centre it) and neither can this exhibition. But the work can speak toward some of the finer qualities of decolonial time. Perhaps primarily that it is non-linear. If it’s a 12 year rebellion, 500 years of resistance or over 75 years of occupation, decolonial time speaks beyond deadlines, last chances and last ditch efforts. Decolonial time holds the past, present and future together; we work while in solidarity and conversation with those behind and those ahead and look at every site of our lives as a potential for resistance. I met Stina in a time of many parallel struggles and we were not perfect. But, we persisted, adding this exhibition to the chorus of our ambitious revolutions.

HOHOL (Hang Out Hang Out Lang) is a project presented by artists and curators Patrick Cruz and Christian Vistan with grunt gallery. Comprising a group exhibition at grunt and a series of artworks and programs in venues and other cultural spaces for the Filipino community throughout Vancouver, HOHOL gathers Filipino contemporary artists from across the diaspora and puts them in dialogue with each other and the 1996 exhibition at Plug In, ICA in Winnipeg, Memories of Overdevelopment: Philippine Diaspora in Contemporary Art, an early reference and inspiration for HOHOL. HOHOL brings together these artists to reflect on their shared and individual contexts and personal histories and to continue to think through themes and questions of diasporic and postcolonial Filipino identities and practices.

Opening on June 15th, the exhibition features artworks by Christopher Baliwas, Trisha Baga, Patrick Cruz, Ella Gonzales, Ramolen Laruan, Lani Maestro, Manuel Ocampo, Christian Vistan, Thea Yabut and a text by Patrick Flores.

As an offsite extension of the HOHOL exhibition, Lani Maestro’s STILL is screening on the Emily Carr Urban Screen at the Wilson Arts Plaza, May 13-July 14, 2024. Presented in partnership with Libby Leshgold Gallery.

Lani Maestro’s STILL brings the work – originally commissioned for a poster billboard in Toronto in 2002 – into a new, digital context. Maestro’s work has often taken the form of images that become embodied in the process of reading or utterance and STILL exemplifies the artist’s inquiries into language, the body and subjectivity.

This project is made possible through funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the City of Vancouver.

Poster by Patrick Cruz and Christian Vistan.

Digitized Programming

Creative Access Audio Tour:

Transcript: Plain text (formatted for screen readers), Google Docs

Also available on SoundCloud: streaming audio

Site Map:

A PDF site map containing art work titles and materials. This information will also available within the creative access audio tour. A 2 tactile maps are available in the space and can be used in tandem with the audio tour to guide both non-visual and sighted guests. The tour can also be used with our virtual walkthrough.

Virtual Walkthrough:

“Daughter, I made these works for you, my future ancestor. I created this document, these pieces, thisMichif self-archive for you. So you wouldn’t have to search my name, dig deep for my stories…”  

Inspired by her grandpa’s hunting shack and her daughter’s ancestral home lands, Maria-Margaretta Cabana Boucher reaches for the space between worlds in her solo exhibition, a memory of you: of holding, of carrying together. In this exhibition she extrapolates, expands and focuses in on beaded works and structures as a way of building forward with new archives of work, mindful of the gaps and omissions that she would like to not be repeated when passing her lineage to her own daughter. Running counter to a long history of assigned anonymity to Michif women in the archive, she is using the space of this exhibition to reclaim agency and position her beading practice as resistance to the erosion of cultural memory.

Maria-Margaretta is an interdisciplinary Red River Michif artist from Treaty Six Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has ancestral ties to the Métis communities of St-François-Xavier, St. Boniface, Manitoba and St. Louis, Saskatchewan. She is currently making and living on the stolen territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Nations. Maria-Margaretta holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art+Design and an MFA from OCAD University. Her practice is an exploration of the Michif self archive, autobiographical beadwork and objects of the everyday. Using Métis identity as a place of transformation she questions how memory, personal experience, motherhood, and ancestral relations influence her understanding of self.

Photo by Dennis Ha.

Digitized Programming

Publication catalogue:

Designed by Vicky Lum and printed by Moniker Press, free, physical copies of the catalogue are available in the gallery while supplies last.

A PDF version with images is available to explore here.

An Alternative-Text version is available to explore: Plain text, Audio.

Creative Access Audio Tour:

Soundcloud: streaming audio

creative-access-audio-transcript-plainText-aMemory

Floor Plan:

A 02-memory-floorplan from the exhibition. A tactile map was created and has been archived at grunt gallery. Information about the tactile map is available within the Creative Access Audio Tour and was used as a reference tool for self-guided movement through the show. Contact archives@grunt.ca to learn more about the tactile map.

Virtual Walkthrough:

We captured a 360 of the exhibition, but only have the rights to share 5 active shows at a time. Here are stills that were pulled from the 360. If you would like to experience our 360 capture, please contact archives@grunt.ca

The video is a silent pan through the show starting at the welcome station, and panning right before it flies up and shows the gallery as a “dollhouse” from above before coming back down and panning the show looking north and panning right.

Mercedes Eng is a Chinese mixee settler with familial connections to “Vancouver’s” Chinatown that are 100 years deep. She is an artist, poet, prison abolitionist, and a professor at Emily Carr University, where she organizes the On Edge reading series. Mercedes’ writing and art is shaped by lived experience, grounded in community organizing and volunteering, and in service to social and environmental justice. It has been her years-long dream to exhibit her father’s prison artwork as an act of loving care.

Digitized Programming:

Publication catalogue:

Designed by Vicky Lum and printed by Moniker Press, free, physical copies of the catalogue are available in the gallery while supplies last.

A PDF version with images is available to explore here.
An Alternative-Text version is available to explore: Plain text, Audio.

Artist Talk:

Site Map and Didactics:

A PDF containing the didactic information and layout of the salon installations of the archive images and brass works in the show. This didactic information is also contained within the audio tour and virtual walkthroughs.

Virtual Walkthrough:

We captured a 360 of the exhibition, but only have the rights to share 5 active shows at a time. Here are stills that were pulled from the 360. If you would like to experience our 360 capture, please contact archives@grunt.ca

The video is a silent pan through the show starting at the welcome station, moving to a salon installation of many snapshot photographs, left to a large framed photo of a sailboat. Next, a wooden bookshelf filled with books on restorative justice and texts that are important to Mercedes’ practice. Finally, the east wall where many large copper etchings are framed in a horizontal line.

“Sora, you need to give birth to a daughter.”

Inundated by the idea that prosperity and success will come to her once she gives birth to a daughter, Sora Park’s exhibition Daughter, Daughter, Daughter at grunt gallery reflects Korean diasporic experiences through the exploration of Saju, Korea’s ancient form of divination and fortune-telling practice that predicts one’s fate based on the date and time of their birth.

Travelling between the past, present, and future, Park invites the visitors to the gallery space trapped inside a red square on her Saju chart that links her destiny to motherhood. As a happily child-free person, Park delves into how her childhood spent in Korea and her upbringing in a Korean-Canadian household where childbearing is considered a norm collide with her own interpretation of motherhood. 

Daughter, Daughter, Daughter depicts a playful perception of a fortune-telling practice and its claim that the future can seriously be predicted while revealing a tiny fraction of trust and belief in the practice that lures so many people into being participants. By applying aesthetics within Saju to her colourful and immersive installation, the exhibition at grunt gallery explores the relationship between people’s belief in the occult and the role that gender plays in predicting one’s fate.

Sora Park gratefully acknowledges the support from the Canada Council for the Arts for this exhibition. 

Sora Park (She/Her) is a Korean-Canadian interdisciplinary artist living on the traditional territories of the q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), Máthxwi (Matsqui) and Se’mya’me’ (Semiahmoo) First Nations. She received her BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and received her MA in Fine Arts from Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Bergen, Norway. In her art practice, she is currently interested in exploring the space between clarity and confusion brought on by diasporic experiences.

Image courtesy of the artist.
This exhibition is curated by Whess Harman.

Digitized Programming:

Publication catalogue:

PDF
A companion catalogue for the exhibition with curatorial text by Whess Harmon, and exhibition response by Areum Kim.
Visual description available: Plain Text, Audio.
A free printed copy is available in gallery while supplies last.

Artist Talk:

Summary: Recording of the artist Sora Park in conversation with local artist Romi Kim from January 11th, 2024. Video has English captions.

Creative Access Audio Tour:

Creative Access Audio Tour of the exhibition. Link opens on SoundCloud (external link).
Listen to a visually described tour of Daughter, Daughter, Daughter, written by Sora Park with support from Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa and Kay Slater, and narrated by Kay Slater.
Transcript available: Google Doc, Plain Text, PDF

Site map:

A PDF containing art work titles and materials. This information is also available within the creative access audio tour.

Virtual Walkthrough:

We captured a 360 of the exhibition, but only have the rights to share 5 active shows at a time. Here are stills that were pulled from the 360. If you would like to experience our 360 capture, please contact archives@grunt.ca

The video is a silent pan of the exhibition viewing the show from the south, and then a fly up and over as the camera repositions to a north view of the exhibition.