Kelowna art exhibition calls attention to political discourse

The Kelowna Art Gallery is hosting a new exhibition of artwork that calls attention to social and political discourse.

From Jan. 21 to April 16, guests are invited to attend the ‘We Are Countless’ exhibition, which showcases art made by Reyhan Yazdani and Nasim Pirhadi, who are both Persian Canadian women.

The exhibition’s title comes from Pirhadi’s acrylic painting of the same name, which depicts a tapestry of recognizable figures in varying states of protest interspersed with city motifs and backed by high-voltage power lines.

Pirhadi says the work is “a reflection on the current political unrest in Iran and is a direct response to 22-year-old Jina ‘Mahsa’ Amini’s murder by the morality police of the Islamic Republic for not wearing her hijab.”

In a series of ceramic sculptures by Yazdani, visitors will encounter familiar objects like cassette tapes and viewfinders.

Yazdani uses familiar household objects, maps and papers that are abstracted and rematerialized, processing what has been lost, hidden or taken away in the current history of Iran under the governance of the Islamic Republic.

Pirhadi is a multi-medium artist based in Kelowna and a current MFA candidate at UBC Okanagan. Yazdani is an artist of multilingual heritage who works on paper, social art and creative writing in addition to installation. She is currently an instructor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver.

The exhibition is supported by Naze Khajavi at RE/MAX Kelowna and Mehrsa Maali at Royal LePage Kelowna.

Learn more about the event here.