Artistic Voices of Iranian Women in Canada: Simin Keramati, Mahsa Alikhani, and Jinoos Taghizadegh

The Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa welcomes Simin Keramati, Mahsa Alikhani, and Jinoos Taghizadegh, three Toronto-based artists who work in contemporary mediums such as video, photography, life-writing, performance, drawing, and multi-media. They each will speak (in the order indicated) for 30-40 minutes about their own artwork, and a question and answer period will follow. The event is in English with Farsi translation possible for Q & A period.

Simin Keramati is an Iranian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist who works in photography, film, mixed media, and painting. Keramati references various elements from news and social media, and sometimes her personal life and body are present in her artworks, which address themes of identity, diasporic experience, women’s rights, and gender equality. She received her Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Art University of Tehran, and eventually achieved a faculty position at Azad University in Tehran. She has received many awards, including the Grand Prize at the Dhaka International Biennial in 2003-04. She was shortlisted for the MOPCAP (Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize) in 2009. In 2012, after struggling with depression in the aftermath of the protests in Iran of 2009, Keramati immigrated to Toronto. Her works have been exhibited in art galleries and museums internationally, including the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the RedCat Museum in the USA, Saarland Museum in Germany, and Whitechapel Gallery in London. Recently, Keramati has been working on literature-based themes, reclaiming the role of women in classical stories. For this occasion, Keramati will discuss the trajectory of her practice before and after her immigration to Canada, and introduce a selection of her projects, focusing on her most recent and providing details of a work-in-progress.

Mahsa Alikhani graduated from Azad University in Tehran after completing formal studies in art and architecture. She has shown her artwork in solo and group exhibitions in Tehran and various other cities in Europe and North America, including Toronto. Alikhani will talk about her practices before and after immigration to Canada in 2019, such as the large installation project entitled Dream’s Ashes, which honoured the victims of downed Ukraine Airlines Flight 752, most of whom were Iranian-Canadians. Alikhani will also discuss her prior decade of photography and installation works, which have focused on the social and cultural issues of Iran, in particular, those affecting women. In staged photographic tableaux, she combines imaginative and real structures, and integrates irony with provocative elements from contemporary life, culture, and art history.

Jinoos Taghizadeh is a multi-disciplinary Iranian artist, storyteller, and activist with extensive experience in the fine arts. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in sculpture from the University of Tehran, where she also studied literature and drama. She has worked in various capacities in the field of arts, including as the editor-in-chief of the fine arts section in several art magazines. Jinoos has exhibited artwork in a variety of artistic mediums, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, performance art, video art, and scriptwriting. She has been awarded numerous grants and artist residencies, including the Avolon and RHA Global Studio Award in Ireland and the WARP Contemporary Art Center in Belgium. After the 2022-23 political uprising in Iran, leaving the country was inevitable, and she now lives and works in Toronto.

*Over one year ago, the death in police custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini sparked the Iran-wide Women, Life, Freedom protests for gender equality. One month ago, the Iranian journalist and human-rights activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while serving multiple, politically-motivated sentences in a Tehran prison. This event shows solidarity with Iranian gender equity activists and their supporters, both in Iran and in the diaspora, and expresses support for the women, girls, and gender-non-conformists of Afghanistan, as well as the citizens of Palestine who are being denied their human rights.