‘We’re all in this together’: Iranian-Canadian artists fight for freedom through public art in Richmond Hill

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 10, 2023
Sheila Wang

Tossing turbans and burning head scarves, the anti-government protests in Iran continue to sweep across the country following the death of Mahsa Amini in September.

Some 10,000 kilometres away from their homeland, four Iranian-Canadian artists came together in Richmond Hill to demonstrate the civil rights struggles through public art in support of the ongoing fight for freedom.

The artists have launched a unique art exhibition, one which will run until March 18, with the theme of “A Trilogy of a Revolution: Women Life Freedom” at the central branch of the Richmond Hill Public Library this winter.

The three-piece exhibition is a collaboration of artists Aitak Sorahitalab, Azadeh Pirazimian, Sara Tamjidi and Shahrzad Zadmajid from different parts of the GTA.

“It was very important for all of us that we put our work in a space where it would be best received by the people who experience the impacts of what's going on at home the most intensely,” Tamjidi said.

The artists said they chose the local library not only because they each had a unique connection with the community, but also because a rally of 50,000 people took place in the city last October in solidarity with the anti-regime protests in Iran.

It took them almost four months to put together the exhibition, guided by the slogan “Women Life Freedom” -- translated in 19 languages at the exhibition and first coined by Kurdish women fighters, which has become a rallying cry during the protests in Iran.

“We’re all in this together,” is one of their messages, said Sorahitalab, who is working on a thesis at York University on public art and human rights.

The first art piece is a wall of square mirrors of different sizes with red writing in Farsi, English and French, reading “This is the face of someone who can revolt!”

It was inspired by stencilled paintings on a restroom mirror created by anonymous students at the Tehran University of Art, Pirazimian, a Toronto-based art educator, said.

“I was in awe. These people are actually changing a semiprivate space into a site of resistance,” Pirazimian said.

By recreating the messages on the mirrors, the artist said she wanted to honour the art students who risked their lives to push against the institutional repression and call on onlookers to join the fight for freedom.

The second installation is a digital art piece featuring a woman in a thinker pose in three different angles, interspersed with poems and historical facts about the women's rights movements.

“It came from just echoing the voice of women from Iran,” Sorahitalab, who lives in Holland Landing, said. “Women from Iran should have the same rights that women in Canada have or anywhere else. So we want to bring that idea here.”

Sorahitalab, who came to Canada with her husband from Iran nine years ago, said she remembers the constant fear she had to live with under the regime.

Shortly after Amini died in the custody of Iranian “morality police” for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly” in September, Sorahitalab said she participated in a movement where she and eight other women cut their hair in front of the provincial parliament building in Toronto.

“I was aware of my privilege here because nobody would have shot me in the head because of doing this. I wanted to create a visual for people in Canada to see our solidarity with them,” Sorahitalab said, while fighting back tears.

Next to the digital piece stands a colourful display of craft lanterns made of paper, glue and tea lights.

The 70 lanterns float in the air, each representing a young life under 18 years old that has been lost during the protests in Iran since September.

Iran’s Generation Z -- those born between 1997 and 2010 -- has been at the forefront of the ongoing protests across the country despite the regime’s violent, sometimes deadly crackdowns and threats of arrest.

“We want to represent the fact that they were vibrant, colourful beings that had dreams and hopes for their own lives and futures that they wanted to build and aspirations that they had. And all of that was cut very aggressively, way too short,” Tamjidi said.

A list of names of the Iranian children and youth are posted alongside the art piece to honour the lost lives -- as young as eight years old.

“No one person is free if their neighbour is not free,” Tamjidi said, noting they wanted to show the “interconnectedness” of the civil rights issue worldwide.

When the artists first approached Anete Ivsina, a librarian at Richmond Hill Public Library, about the exhibition, Ivsina said she knew it would resonate with the community.

“The library is a safe space for people to connect, to tell others about their experiences. Everything that's happening on a global landscape, it comes to us immediately. So we want to be part of the conversation,” Ivsina said.