 Hello everyone, and good evening. My name is Taryn Urquhart, and I'm the Arts and Special Events Programmer here at the West Vancouver Memorial Library. On behalf of the Library and the West Vancouver Art Museum, I would like to welcome you to tonight's Art Talk. While I recognize that we are all in different places this evening, I would like to acknowledge that the West Vancouver Library and Art Museum reside within the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Squamish Nation, Slavicuth Nation, and Musqueam Nation. We recognize and respect them as nations in their territory, as well as their connection to the lands and waters around us since time immemorial. It has been my great pleasure to work with Alison Powell and her guests tonight to bring this event to your screens. And now I'd like to pass things over to Alison, who's waiting for us over at the museum. Alison? Thank you, Taryn, and good evening. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for this Artist Talk. My name is Alison Powell, and I'm the Assistant Curator at the West Vancouver Art Museum, and I am pleased to introduce you. Maya Rodrigo Abdi is an emerging art historian, curator, and artist from North Vancouver. She is currently in the process of completing her Master's of Arts degree in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia. And Rosalind Sadeghiani is an artist from West Vancouver who recently graduated from the University of British Columbia with her BFA in Visual Arts and Psychology. In her practice, she traces the genealogy of mass-produced materials. Kiana Shania is an emerging visual artist based in North Shore, Vancouver, with a primary focus on oil panel paintings. As a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia with a double major in visual arts and art history, her artistic practice is situated within liminal and Eurocentric histories influenced by narratives that have determined what art is, how it is produced, who should view it, and what the viewer should gain from engaging with it. Thank you all for joining us today, and I will pass the mic on to Maya. As the curator of Who's Your Daddy, I started this exhibit by asking Rosalind and Kiana to join the show to include their works in it. Rosalind already had a work beforehand, and Kiana had a work commissioned for the show. So as we start, ladies, both of you are asked by me to get involved in the show last year. Kiana, you were asked to read a new work. Rosalind, you were asked to include a previous work of yours. And it was the preface and premise was to have your works be included in the North Shore because we all have grown up in the North Shore. So do you have any initial thoughts you want to share about the exhibition before we get into like deep dive questions and like how you or your work relates to exhibitions themes? Yeah, for sure. I think like coming into this exhibition with the previous work, I would say that my perspectives have kind of like changed a lot before. Like I, it was just kind of like a standalone piece, but kind of like in the context of the exhibition, I think it kind of became part of a broader dialogue, which was interesting to see. And I kind of made me think more, I guess, deeply about like the different like patriarchal figures involved in like the creation and like the conception of the filters. And like, I guess like the relationship with the filters to the North Shore in general. Yeah, and I guess going off of that, in contrast to Rosalind's, my work was made for the exhibition. So the production of it was heavily influenced by the theme of who's your daddy. And I guess the constant dialogue that surrounded the notion of these paternal figures that are manifested through objects and geographies. And yeah, so in the relation to the piece and like also knowing that the piece was going to be displayed within and like surrounded by the West Vancouver Art Museum's historic objects kind of really influenced how it was going to look and like, you know, being displayed in the house of a daughter. It really influenced the outcome and the production of the piece. Because I kind of decided to explore who's your daddy through the narrative of accumulation and consumption and taking a more, I guess, individual approach to the construction of it. Yeah, that's great. No, like, no, yes. And thinking about Mr. Lube and actual dads is like two different ends of the spectrum for this exhibit. So yes, we've done that. But like, how do you feel about having your work situated within this exhibition that deals with the West Vancouver Art Museum's historical object and fine art collections? Keanna, you talked a little bit about it when you said how your work was situated within the historical objects. So like, feel free to jump in either of you. Yeah, I mean, for me, I would say it's like a very wonderful experience to be able to like kind of go through the objects and like look at them up close. And especially since like, I already have kind of interests and like things that like we wouldn't like necessarily consider to be kind of like artifacts or like different like hidden histories or things that were kind of like lost or forgotten in a way. I also appreciate how mundane, I think that these objects were but also like, I think like your career, your curation Maya kind of like put them into the context of like these broader issues like kind of like kind of pertaining to like the institution and like the place of the daughter. And then like, and thinking about that like with my work. Because I think it was really, it was really great and it was, I really kind of like believe in having like a very embodied experience, like with artworks and also like with objects and like, it was great that like this exhibition kind of allows like the viewers to get very up close with like these North Shore artifacts in a way. Like you have like your own North Shore artifacts that you bring into this as well, which I mean Rosin so do you but like Canada you create a representation of it. Yes, so you know someone kind of as Rosin said I'm like very passionate about history and artifacts and like being able to not only see these local artifacts of the North Shore but I'm also being becoming a part of their narrative as well as such it's been such a and you know I kind of see art in a sense as this linear narrative, I guess, that everything produced is always in relation to what came before it in a sense. So I kind of, which is something that I tend to like embrace in my own practice as well. And I think like Maya you've done such like a great job in this sense of creating a, I guess a cross period curation of this exhibition and kind of kind of bringing that notion of a continuity of the past that is carried out through the present in such like a beautiful way. Kiana, you're flattering me. I don't know what to say. I feel like I, okay, Kiana. Okay, let's do a deep dive. Let's go into the works. Let's not like flatter me too much. It's not Curatorist Star. You're the stars of the show. My artist, Kiana, you created the installation painting Armacristi specifically for the show as we have discussed at Nauseum at this point, and it's a stunning painting situated with an antique cabinet. So can you walk us through a little bit of your artistic process and coming up the concept of the work? Thank you. And yeah, for sure. So since I guess the beginning of the project, when it was proposed, I knew that I kind of wanted to take the approach of objects and their collections, especially, you know, knowing about the artifacts that were going to be placed in it. So I kind of like, you know, began brainstorming this dialogue through, I guess, looking at cabinets of curiosities as I kind of tend to start my projects with the structure that's going to be painted on and like with the form that's going to be used before like going into what's going to be painted on it. And so then, you know, I got the cabinet and then there came the question of what was I going to be painting on it. And then I remember like Maya won't mean you went to the gallery to go through the historic objects and like that action of like opening the boxes and taking out these artifacts really like reminded me of like when I was young, like back home. You know, my dad is a bit of a hoarder so he has these boxes that are like filled with like random objects that he's collected over like 30 years. You know, things like like chocolate wrappers to like the bullets from the Iran Iraq war. So yeah, every year I would like kind of get them to bring them down during spring cleaning and like spend a day looking through them. So then that kind of inspired me kind of bring these mundane objects together and kind of depict them in this still life way and memorialize them. So then these are forgettable objects in a way gain the significance through their collection. So I kind of gathered or like tried to gather as many objects as I could that have survived this immigration 11 years ago and kind of combine them with the objects that have been added to the collection since then and kind of create my own I guess curation of artifacts kind of mirroring what you have done in the second gallery. And yeah, I guess like the Yeah, the Christian imagery and aesthetic of it comes from I guess personal interest in that art history aspect and like that period and the art produced for the Christian imagery. And I guess through using this aesthetic association I projected the notion of divinity and like holiness that was then placed onto these objects. Yeah, no, it's okay. I remember in the summer when you came in and looked at it, looked at all the like different like objects that me and Allison had gone into the little like the annex at the back of the gallery, where everything is stored all the historical objects. And we had picked some selections not everything made it into the show and so it's like interesting to think about like the things that aren't in the show that inspired your work and then also like how you mimic West Vancouver's own archival collection and historical collection, and that like accumulation over time and like your own family home and like your own family system so yeah I mean like yeah it's so cool to think about how we've gotten here I'm obsessed. And Roslyn, you like by going into Mr. Lubin hires like created your own collection itself, which you had for like a couple of years now, and like displayed in different time periods. So your work 75 car oil filters collected on November 28 2021 around 2pm from recycling bin at the back of Mr. Lou 1790 marine drive North Vancouver BC VCP one v to a very lengthy title documenting everything about the the dates is an installation work with oil filters from that local oil change to restore. So it functions as a different type of collection or accumulation that you kind of bring into the gallery I'm looking at it right now. It's kind of heard that it's like people at the opening thought it was like a ready made type 60s sculpture. So that was an interesting take on it. And it is ready made in some ways but it's also a collection that you have that you're kind of putting on display and a medium in your own work. So how did this work come to be and you tell us a little bit more about history of that historical object collection of yours. Yeah, yeah for sure. I kind of, I think when I started our work I usually kind of look at the past and like it's usually a continuation of something I've done before. So I definitely collected the filters. It wasn't it wasn't all my intention to kind of create this piece I actually collected them for to use the remaining remaining oil inside of it as a painting medium for a painting titled the itch scratch cycle. Yeah, like after the completion of that work I kind of, I felt like there was more to the filters. I really just like I don't know I kind of became obsessed with them I started to be searching them. I kind of started by putting them into like a spreadsheet and like naming each individual like what company are they from like what's their barcode like what can I get from like searching up this barcode. And then from there I began kind of creating I guess a lineage of them I like I created like these kind of like maps of like these companies and then you'll see that they had like a parent company and then who owns that and like kind of going, you know, further and further back, I guess, and that's kind of like how the initial work came to be it was kind of like, it was a big kind of research project, and I wanted to display them in a way that like you, you get really up close with like an object I mean it's so common like they're like filters are kind of like everywhere and like we are reliant on them for transportation up in the present day. And so, yeah, I had displayed them two times before who's your daddy. And it's been very interesting to see just how much oil there is in them like they're, I think it's been like three, like two, like over two years I would say that like I collected the original filters, and they're still leaking. And it's, yeah, it's it's been really interesting to see how it's just like continually like leaking and like this research has kind of like developed even within who's your daddy looking more into like Mr. Lou and such. Yeah, that's no like, that was, that was a lot of question and you gave me lots of answers like this is correct, like, I feel like, I know it just makes me like that idea that they're still leaking after you've like collected them for so long and then also displayed them is like so interesting to think about. And also, I know, yeah, like just the way you talk about oil and your practice, and how it's used as a medium for you is so interesting so like, I don't know the repair it of like, like how to repair and also like how it's like indicative of like an ongoing issue that can't be resolved I guess like not to like I don't know just all the different ways you talk about oil is so interesting to me so please tell us a little bit more. Thank you. I think, I mean, like, I think I kind of use the term oil, kind of broadly like I mentioned that in the previous work I use petroleum jelly, but I've also used walnut oil and also like kind of more traditional oils with oil painting. And like I kind of I guess started out with oil painting like that's where my original interest in oil began and I was experimenting with using oil paints on like rock canvas, which has this very like beautiful and kind of corporeal effect over time like the oil will like separate from the pigment and then like it spreads out and creates kind of like this halo like around the painting in a way and then it also has like a very like physical and heavily effect on like the canvas structure where like the canvas structure, like the wood will start to like bend and curve over time and it becomes like very like wonky. So yeah, like I guess like oil has this like very like unpredictable uncontrollable quality to it like it's very slippery. It does not want to be contained. And it's also like it creates like such a such a it's a very messy medium and like it's very hard to clean up. So I've thought about this mess and like the these kind of like physical qualities of oil kind of like both on a metaphor metaphorical level but also in its like physicality and thinking about like how oil kind of like seeps its way into our lives in like different ways. I think like, yeah, it's a very, it's a very heavy medium it has like, I think it has a lot of like very beautiful physical qualities that like, I really like playing with. But there's also so much like history and stories that like, I've been interested in exploring throughout my practice. I love the way you talk about it. I know it's just such an interesting like deep dive into the medium and like I don't know I've never heard anyone talk about like this before and it always I don't know I get inspired every time I hear you talk about it. Kiana, you painted your work in actual oil paint, and you usually paint on what panels rather than the typical canvas. And I just like, I don't know, you can talk about oil paint but I also know that like what panel like painting is like important to your practice as well so like, tell us a little bit about when you started working with any of the mediums that you used in your work and also what panel specifically. Yeah, so I guess I started working on what panels around like three years ago and it was mostly inspired. And like I was kind of intrigued by like you know learning in art history about all these like old masters that like paint oil on wood panels. And I kind of wanted to like try it out and see what it's like. So then one day I just like grabbed a piece of wood and started painting on it and then I never went back to canvas again. And I guess like oil on panel paintings itself is such like a historically charged medium associated with like or, I guess, called high art, and, you know, it holds a lot of history within art history so then kind of having the medium itself it kind of puts my work within this narrative of painting and its history. And I guess would in general, or specifically it's kind of and like having experienced woodworking it kind of opened a lot of doors for me and allowed me to create a lot of more elaborate surfaces to paint on. And then it kind of puts my work away from like the traditional canvas painting of like an image on a flat surface and gives like, I guess, aspects of sculpture and architecture to my pieces through the interactivity and the mobility that is made possible by the sense of play and playability that wood is able to offer. And I've like got many different pieces to it and like parts and like my eyes go to like you on the side and then you on the other side and then all of the stuff in the middle and then the carpet at the bottom and it's just yes the sense of play is very much there. And in that it's like all of the wood panels are contained within like the cabinet. And so like if you could speak also to like what is the significance of the cabinet in your work. And it kind of acts as both a part of the work itself but also is like a container I guess which is interesting when you think about like all of your influences for the work itself. Yes, so the cabinet. I guess in the very shape and form of it. It's very similar and it hints to like these Christian altarpiece reliquaries like these boxes that used to hold or I guess they might still exist. Kind of remnants and like remains of holy sites and holy people for worship like shoes, hair, dirt, bits of clothes, clothes and bones. And it's also I guess important to note that the cabinet itself, like what it's holding and like the imagery is recycled from a thrift store here in North Vancouver. In that sense, it also is in dialogue with everything that is depicted within it. And yeah, so in a sense like the cabinet is still functioning in based on its original purpose, which is like displaying of objects. And in a sense also refers back to how these objects were kept in boxes that my dad originally put them in. But then again, through its visual kind of similarity to these sacred objects and containers, it kind of glorifies these objects and turns them into penetrated kind of relics and objects that are worth of worship now. So it kind of has that duality that, yeah, as you said, is a part of the work but it also adds to the work and contains it. I love how you draw upon your like art historical background and then simultaneously like, yeah, we got it from a North Vancouver thrift store like urban repurpose like this is a shout out to you. Like we drove down to Park and Sulphur and you collect it and you spotted it and you're like, no, that's it. This is the cabinet immediately clocked. Like, yes, the memory is flooding back. But yes, the art history involved in this is also like, I don't know, everything. Let's move a little bit over to Roslyn again you describe your practice as one that traces the genealogies of mass produced materials. And while Kiana has an art historical background, how do you think your research based background informs your practice. I mean, for me, I guess like the research and like my practice and the artwork they're all very like intertwined, if not the same thing. I guess like I've kind of always been thinking about like, you know where things come from and stuff in my practice and I'm very interested in like the very kind of like overwhelming scale of like production and like, especially in this very like cosmic or like crafty and kind of sense like, I think like through the like process of like researching an object like, like a filter. Or even like I've done like ceiling ceiling panels in the past. I've become very like aware of, I guess like the magnitude of this production which is something that I don't think that we as humans, like we're like could are made to grasp. Just because it's like so out of our kind of like concept of like, you know, how, how many things there can be. So yeah, so I've become very kind of aware of that and also how I guess like disconnected we are from these processes like we don't usually in our day to day lives like question like where does something come from like how does it come into our possession like we kind of just accept the fact that like, you know, like I have this phone or like, you know, we don't think of the different parts of a car where they come from or all these like little kind of like things. And they kind of like under this like economic structure we're living in like the processes of like production and like extraction and recycling I think that they kind of become hidden and like we don't. There's so much like unseen labor that we're not, I guess like many of us have the privilege to not think about right. So I often describe like the objects in my practice as like omnipresent entities that are kind of like the witnesses to this process. Like, yeah I mean like in my in my research like I think like and in making an artwork I really like to bring out like the sensory qualities of the object and that's part of like the research is being able to have like viewers of my work have a very like up close interaction with like objects that we normally won't come into contact with or like we don't think about in this way but they're, you know, we're surrounded with. Yeah, like getting that background information on unseen like processes and unseen labor and unseen linear dis is so important and like so just like relevant to work but then relevant to like how we look at art in general. So, like, yeah, I feel like we're so grateful to have your work in the show and like it also is not just the filters, there's also no accompanying booklet that like demonstrates and documents your research that viewers can flip through on a little plinth beside the sculpture or installation it's an installation I don't know the impact of someone saying it was a sculpture I mean it is sculptural also I don't know this separate but why have you chosen to display this booklet with the filters that tie into those like. Importance of like documenting unseen things. Yeah, I mean, like, when I was researching, I mean, I was really thinking about like how should I display these filters like how much information do I give. And like that was, I was really thinking about about that. But I think in like the process of like researching the filters I, I spent a lot of time kind of going through like different like automotive manufacturer like websites or like info booklets or like different PDFs. And I kind of realized that there's like certain aesthetics that kind of like pop up when you're going through these things and like, they were usually like very minimal they were grid like which like also informed like how I presented the filters. And I think like the kind of organization like, it was kind of like a deceptive deceptively organized aesthetic that I kind of found to be confusing. And like, almost like propaganda and maybe that was just because they're not meant for me but like that's just kind of how I felt about them. And I wanted to like provide, I guess my audience with like, like little bits of information, but also like being able to mimic this kind of like inaccessible and like obscured layers of like bureaucracy and then like these like corporate aesthetics that kind of like, I don't know they seem to be like hiding something in a way. I like how you refer to that kind of like hierarchy of corporations and the methods in which they like delineate information by not delineating clear information, but also has like, I don't know very pretty pictures of the filters as well kind of flipped through as like that's the main body of it. So visualizing some parts of it, but then all of the like little like spreadsheet information is very hard to decipher. So referring to that is like a very like important part of your work. Thank you for sharing. Anna, you also have a reference to not the same type of corporate industrial complex, but you do reference Christianity and title of your work so armor Christie can be translated into instruments of the passion or weapons of Christ, but whichever you prefer. And so do you mind speaking a little bit more into why you chose to tell me work with this reference. Yeah, so I guess I came across like the term armor Christie while I was doing research on reliquaries and just like these Christian objects of holiness like how objects become holiness sense. And yeah, as you mentioned armor Christie kind of refers to the collection of the sacred objects associated with the passion and crucifixion of Christ. Objects like the nails, the hammers, the cross, the whip, like all these tools that were used during this crucifixion. And, you know, these are all like very ordinary tools that have only gained this kind of profound significance when they became associated with this specific figure of Christ. And I guess this assemblage is probably also one of like the most significant examples of like material culture and material associations and consumption, in a sense that value is being given through, I guess, relational or geographical associations. And then similarly the objects that I have depicted in the painting only become significant because they have been collected because they have been, I guess, moved away and then rediscovered and placed in a still life to be painted and then memorialized within the painting. So I guess by kind of using that as a title I was hoping to provide the audience with kind of a point of departure or like a sense of connection as like a hint of where to begin navigating what my piece is about and yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's such a key part of your work that it's not just a collection of objects but like your intervention into that collection of objects and how you have arranged it and rearranged it and then rearranged it again to get the like perfect still life that you want. And also just I don't know it ties in with the themes of your practice about that you like describe as like offering your audience with a modified representation of what you what has already been done and already been seen. And so like, we've talked about art history a bit but like, just if you wanted to speak a little bit more how does your art historical background inform the specific work and your practice as a whole. Yeah, so with my artistic background I guess I kind of come to frame my visual practice with a lot of art historical research and kind of an awareness of tradition which I bring into my works but and I tend to bend it in ways that are. Either unconventional or just ways that are more contemporary in a sense I guess. So this kind of appears through my work manifested, as I said before through the forms the imagery is the theories that are kind of borrow from are borrowed from like a range of periods and geographies you know going from I've used like Persian manuscripts to like 19th century French paintings. So in the case of Armacristia I guess it was manifested through the reimagining and kind of reconstructing this 12th century like Netherlandish altar pieces within kind of this repurpose antique cabinet and then within the cabinet I've kind of replaced. Or like the accumulation that I have depicted root places what would have originally been taken the spot of the center panel which would be like the classic icon type of Madonna and Christ, and then on the two doors that would have usually been like the portraits of this sacred or sorry, the portrait of like the saints or patrons in devotion is now like the image of my own. Worship in a sense. So yeah, it kind of, I guess, it could be said that my productions are historical reenactments where I kind of insert a contemporary narrative within a more historically familiar compositions in a way. Can you speak also a little bit more to like what the significance of going through the process of collecting the filters from Mr Lou and like the site specificity of your work to North Vancouver from the perspective of someone that lives in West Vancouver. Yeah, definitely. I think like when I start a work I kind of think about like objects materials or places that like I will often encounter and have a kind of like ongoing relationship with. So, like, this Mr Lou, in particular was, it's like the oil chain shop my family would normally go to for kind of as long as I can remember so I don't like, it wasn't really a question of like where I would source the filters to me it kind of just seemed innate that like, you know, this is where I went to and like this, like I, we have this kind of like ongoing relationship with this particular shop. And yeah I guess like it's yeah oil transportation and like you know processes of recycling it's not something that I really thought about before. It's not like it's a process that's not exactly hidden from us but it's also not one that we like thought about a lot and it's like, I think, yeah a lot of it is happening in. There's not many car oil shops in West Vancouver, that I can think of, and I guess like the closest one to me was the one in north band, and it's been really like, yeah, interesting being able to like see all these processes of recycling which like is also happening in north Vancouver. Yeah, that long like strip of marine drive that's like car shops and then like Mr loop and like very car related but also like, yeah, there's a lot, yeah, very much so what sand has a different vibe on marine drive. It's a little more curated, if you could say. Yeah, I mean like as I kind of just mentioned like I am very informed by like the objects and places that I have a kind of relationship with. And I think kind of being in the Iranian diaspora and growing up here I, I use art to kind of reconnect with these localities and with my communities. And I, and like in the process of like making art I've been able to have very meaningful conversations both with my parents and also with you and make you my auntiana. And I think, kind of whether I intend it or I don't like my practices always kind of informed by my subject position. And I think like in dealing with like objects that themselves they're displaced hidden and like forgotten in many ways. I guess my practice is always continually tracing and locating in terms of like plans to move away. I don't have anything set in stone at the moment, but it's definitely something I'm thinking about and I definitely like to kind of like broaden my perspectives in ways. But also I have like kind of a growing appreciation I guess for the arts seen over here. Yeah, it's on the table. What about you can. Yeah, so me on the other hand I'm like kind of the opposite I personally don't really tend to use my subject position a lot within my artistic productions. I guess like Armacresti, it could be said that it was one of the most personal works that I've made thus far, but then growing up in North Vancouver and kind of surrounded by a significant Iranian population. I've kind of been navigating a complex in a sense like interplay of this constructed sense of belonging and a shared experience of displacement. So then I've kind of been taking this duality of longing for a place but I'm pushing it away. And kind of been recently experimenting with kind of bringing in and incorporating the rich visual culture of Iran into my artworks that could be said are like more influenced by a more western vocabulary and a western perspective of art and history. Yeah, and in terms of I guess moving other places. Not really sure like as since I've already experienced that moving of immigration is something that I kind of look at with caution in a way, but at the same time you know, obviously would like to experience growth of both artistically and personally in other places, but nothing sit in stone yet so. This is all part of growing up and getting older. We're not sure where we are. This curatorial process and artistic process that we all share together over the past year, especially in the summer months where we kind of test it out the waters of spending time around different places in the North Shore like John Lawson Park to 711 in Western Vancouver, Grandma Lou hot pot in Burnaby, all these different places going back to UBC campus when maybe we didn't want to or shouldn't or maybe we're almost done with it and like it's almost over. But so we spent all this time in different places and discussing our relationships with daddy like figures and the passing of time for more respective subject positions as daughters situated in this space. It's been very lovely to hear all of the different things about your work. It was very lovely to work with you on this project. And thank you so much for being here and talking about your practice and your work today. Thank you. It was such a pleasure being part of this with everyone involved. And thank you all so much for sharing your life and work. I would like to mention that who's your daddy has a publication that's for sale through our bookstore at the West Vancouver Art Museum. Please join us from Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 5pm to see this amazing exhibition. Thank you.