Translations is a two person exhibition of Jamelie Hassan and Soheila Esfahani, a pair of interdisciplinary artists. Their artworks investigate the translation of cultures across transnational boundaries through the lens of Western (Canada) and Eastern cultural landscapes.
Jamelie Hassan’s work touches upon her Arabic cultural roots and familial histories interwoven with politics and activism. Soheila Esfahani questions displacement, dissemination, and reinsertion of culture by re-contextualizing culturally specific ornamentation and various collected souvenir type objects.
The artworks displayed range in media and critically examine the nature of cultural translation. The exhibition challenges the assumptions we possess about how cultural identity travels and asserts itself in a Western context, giving credit to the richness of the flow of knowledge from East to West.
The exhibition runs from July 9 to September 2, 2020 in the Main Gallery.
UPDATE: Curator Jenelle M. Pasiechnik’s essay on the creation of Translations during the pandemic, was published in the ARTiculate Journal of Art History in February 2022.
