Time Lapsed

Time Lapsed
Gita Hashemi
MAIN GALLERY
Exhibition runs March 1 2013 – March 30 2013
Opening: March 1 2013: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Essay by: Haleh Niazmand
Supported by: Charles Street Video (special sponsor)
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OUSTER REMIXED
Performance by Gita Hashemi with Sarah Abu-Sharar, Jennifer Cypher, Niloofar Golkar, Ali Mustafa, Nara Nadesan, Parvin Samadzadeh

Friday March 1, 7:30 PM ET (Doors open at 6:30 PM)
Performance is 70 minutes and is in English.
Seating is limited. Doors close at 7:30 sharp.
Please help us keep the gallery scent-free for this performance.
Accessible space.

Simultaneous web streaming at http://headquarters.opinionware.net
March 2, 4:00 AM Tehran
March 2, 12:30 AM London (GMT)
March 1, 7:30 PM Washington

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HEALING COLONIALISM: EMBODIMENTS, INTERVENTIONS, DISRUPTIONS
Discussion circle with Gita Hashemi, Naomi Binder Wall, Monique Mojica and Haleh Niazmand
Saturday March 16, 2 – 4 PM

Gita Hashemi’s artworks in Time Lapsed detail principal historic events in Iran, distilled through a unique web of analysis and channeled into insights that are ultimately as personal as they are historic and political. Consisting of three significant interactive and participatory artworks-performance and video installation Ephemeral Monument (2008), hypermedia narrative CD-R Of Shifting Shadows (2000), and a new site-specific installation and performanceHeadquarters: Pathology of an Ouster and Ouster Remixed-this exhibition puts contemporary Iran in context through the perspective of colonial violence and trauma. Connecting this history with other lives that were injured by colonialism around the world, Hashemi’s work creates a venue for collective remembrance, understanding and solidarity, and charts a new territory in (hi)story-telling that is inclusive, mindful and empowering. Hashemi highlights the shared humanity that connects us together regardless of individual locality, national identity or geopolitical struggles.

BIOGRAPHIES

Born in Shiraz, Iran, Gita Hashemi is an award-winning transmedia artist, curator and writer whose practice is concerned with historical and contemporary issues. She routinely engages in direct relations with audiences by creating immersive environments and employing collaborative, performative and participatory approaches. Most recently, she exhibited in a solo show at the Red House Centre in Sofia in 2011, at 2012 Electrochoc Festival in Lyon, and at Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco in 2013. She has taught time-based art, (new) media and cultural studies at York and Ryerson Universities and University of Toronto. Since she entered the School of Fine Arts in Tehran University shortly after the 1979 Revolution, her motto has been: the personal is poetic, the poetic is political, the political is personal.

Gita Hashemi wishes to acknowledge the support of Ontario Arts Council. She is specially grateful to Ouster Remixed participants for their creative contribution; to Haleh Niazmand, Mansour Bonakdarian, Masih Hashemi, Monique Mojica and Morteza Hashemi for advice and research support; to Ali Ammari for web design; and to Niloofar Golkar, Nasrin Zerehi and Shahrvand Newspaper for outreach and publicity.

Artist and curator, Haleh Niazmand‘s work has been exhibited widely in venues such as San Diego Museum of Art, Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM, Des Moines Art Center, IA, and reviewed/published in Art Papers, US Art, Fuse Magazine, Radical History Review, Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. During a 1998-2000 residency at Des Moines Art Center, Niazmand designed and implemented workshops with marginalized communities, including state mental hospital and children’s homes residents. In 2003 she founded Gallery Subversive, and directed Modesto Junior College’s art gallery from 2005-2011.

Time Lapsed technology and camera maven, David Findlay is a thing-maker, writer, cameraperson and technical consultant who currently splits his time between Southern Ontario and Southern California.

OUSTER REMIXED PERFORMERS

Sarah Abu-Sharar is a storyteller, social worker and an activist living in Toronto, Canada and working on her Masters in Expressive Art Therapy in Saas Fee, Switzerland. Sarah is passionate about the arts, traveling and human rights.

Jennifer Cypher is an American-in-Canada, newbie hockey player, academic and activist. She has a PhD in Environmental Studies from York University, where she also teaches.

Niloofar Golkar is an Iranian activist who moved to Canada in 2008. She is currently working on her Masters degree in Social and Political Thought at York University.

Ali Mustafa is a freelance writer, photographer, and multimedia journalist. His articles have appeared in Znet, the Dominion, Upside Down World, Electronic Intifada, the Bullet, and various other sites and publications. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada.

Narayani Nadesan is an ideas junkie, an explorer of creative wisdom and a believer in the arts and technology. She is Toronto-based, by way of Jaffna-Chennai-Muscat.

Parvin Samadzadeh was born in Tehran, Iran. Since 1992, she has been working as a counselor with women survivors of domestic abuse in Toronto.

DISCUSSION PANELISTS

Naomi Binder Wall is a long-time social activist and a widely published writer. She is a member of Women in Solidarity With Palestine.

Monique Mojica (Guna and Rappahannock) - is a Toronto-based actor/playwright passionately dedicated to theatrical practice as acts of healing, cultural reclamation and resistance.

Ouster Remixed (performance stream)
Watch Ouster Remixed in its entirety as performed on March 1, 2013 at the opening of the exhibition Time Lapsed at A Space Gallery in Toronto, courtesy of http://headquarters.opinionware.net/video-stream/.

 03 May 2013