"Safar - A Middle Eastern Voyage," at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology Exhibit of work by Arab, Iranian and Turkish artists

×

1 of 11

Expand

"Destination X"

Ayman Baalbaki, "Destination X," 2010, mixed media installation, dimensions variable. Photo Farjam Collection, Dubai.

×

2 of 11

Expand

"Untitled 1 (Self-Portrait Series)"

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, "Untitled 1 (Self-Portrait Series)," 2003-2006, chromogenic print, 21.7” x 29.5”.

×

3 of 11

Expand

"Oh Persepolis II"

Parviz Tanavoli, "Oh Persepolis II," 1975-2008, bronze, 73.2” x 50.4” x 9.8”.

×

4 of 11

Expand

"Oh Persepolis II (detail)"

Parviz Tanavoli, "Oh Persepolis II (detail)," 1975-2008, bronze, 73.2” x 50.4” x 9.8”.

×

5 of 11

Expand

"Strange Space"

Kutlug Ataman, "Strange Space," 2009, video still, dimensions variable.

×

6 of 11

Expand

"Rhyme and Reason"

Nazgol Ansarinia, "Rhyme and Reason," 2009, carpet; hand-woven wool, silk and cotton,141.7” x 99.2”. Collection Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Dubai.

×

7 of 11

Expand

"Untitled 5 (Self-Portrait Series)"

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, "Untitled 5 (Self-Portrait Series)," 2003-2006, chromogenic print, 21.7” x 29.5”.

×

8 of 11

Expand

"Tehran 2006"

Mitra Tabrizian, "Tehran 2006," 2006, C-type light jet print, 40” x 119”. Photo Farjam Collection, Dubai.

×

9 of 11

Expand

"Abidin Travels"

Adel Abidin, "Abidin Travels," 2006, video still, dimensions variable. Photo Farjam Collection, Dubai.

×

10 of 11

Expand

"Abidin Travels"

Adel Abidin, "Abidin Travels," 2006, video still, dimensions variable. Photo Farjam Collection, Dubai.

×

11 of 11

Expand

"Hot Spot"

Mona Hatoum, "Hot Spot," 2006, stainless steel and neon tube, 85.4” diameter. Photo Farjam Collection, Dubai.

Prev

Next

Safar - A Middle Eastern Voyage

Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology

Exhibit of work by Arab, Iranian and Turkish artists

By Portia Priegert

Parviz Tanavoli, sometimes called the father of modern sculpture in Iran, is known for bronzes that reflect the region’s rich cultural history. But like many artists from the Middle East, his work is little known in Canada, even though he’s had a home in Vancouver for two decades. So, understandably, Tanavoli is pleased not only to be included in Safar, an exhibition by 17 Arab, Iranian and Turkish artists at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, but also that the show is happening at all. Indeed, organizers say it’s the first major group exhibition in Canada by internationally recognized artists from the Middle East.     

Tanavoli likens Safar, a Farsi word that means voyage, to a travelogue that encompasses artistic reflections on cultural practices and contemporary urban existence as well as the region’s ongoing social and political realities. “The idea of the curator was that of a traveler traveling from one country to another,” he says. “So the show is to give an idea about some of the important sites, some of the city views, some of the concepts or ideas, some of the political aspects of the area. So it is a variation, but a very small taste of everything.”

Indeed, it was art incorporating various types of maps that inspired the theme, says Fereshteh Daftari, guest curator of the exhibition, which also includes photographs of people in urban landscapes, mock ads for a satirical travel agency, and even a car, its roof stacked high with personal belongings, as if a family is fleeing the outbreak of war. Daftari organized a similar exhibition when she was a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “My knowledge of the artists, built over years, my research and visits to biennials – Istanbul, Sharjah and Venice – provided me with the necessary material,” she says. “I looked for powerful works, most of which have become iconic by now.”

The voyage is a universal theme, but it also allows visitors to consider specific regional contexts. “Today conferences and panel discussions revolve around the idea of knowledge production,” says Daftari. “What can be more appropriate than an invitation to an imaginary voyage, which, along the way, produces knowledge? I also relish the idea of life itself as voyage, which reframes the entire project.”

The best-known artist in the exhibition is likely Mona Hatoum, who was born into a Palestinian family in Beirut and now lives and works in London and Berlin. The museum didn’t have to go far for Hot Spot, a stainless-steel globe with continents outlined in neon. The piece, similar to one Hatoum exhibited at the 2009 Venice Biennale, was borrowed from Vancouver collector Bob Rennie.

Mitra Tabrizian, a London-based artist born in Iran, created another notable piece, Tehran 2006. Her photograph shows people walking outdoors under the watchful eyes of two religious leaders, who are pictured on a large billboard. That image caught the eye of Jill Baird, the exhibition’s coordinating curator. “There are women in chadors or hijabs, but the layout of the photograph and the way the characters are placed and the narrative that she tries to tell, for me, keeps well with the work of Jeff Wall or Rodney Graham – the whole Vancouver School of staging a photograph and making visitors look at it in ways that require some attention to details,” says Baird. “So even though it does have the ayatollahs looking over people’s activities, it also fits very nicely into a visual vocabulary that I think a lot of us are very familiar with.”

The museum, which completed a major expansion in 2010, is best known for its large collection of First Nations’ work from the Pacific Northwest. But it also has collections from around the world. Safar is part of a relatively new thrust to expand the museum’s global context and to mix contemporary art with more ethnographic or culturally focused material.

Given the diversity of British Columbia’s population, many themes in Safar will resonate with viewers, predicts Baird, whose responsibilities included myriad logistical details, including locating a car that could have been used in Lebanon during the 1970s for a reprise of Ayman Baalbaki’s installation, Destination X. “The idea of migration, forced or otherwise, war and the diaspora, the politics of place – these are things many of us understand very well through personal histories and also the colonial and other histories here in British Columbia,” she says.

But for some in the art world, the exhibition raises questions about how the museum will navigate the terrain between anthropology and contemporary art, and how the interests of diaspora cultures in Canada will be reflected in exhibitions. There are many potential sensitivities – geopolitical, historical and cultural – in this new endeavour, particularly for peoples colonized and exoticized by the West.

Safar does not include prominent contemporary Canadian artists of Middle Eastern descent like Ontario’s Jamelie Hassan or Vancouver-based Jayce Salloum, who have worked in the Middle East and were among 26 artists in The Lands Within Me: Expressions by Canadian Artists of Arab Origin, a 2001 exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que. That show was caught in controversy after the museum announced it would be postponed because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Jean Chretien, then prime minister, publicly disagreed with the museum’s stance, and the exhibition went ahead as planned.  

Salloum, known for politically engaged work on territorial loss, is, however, contributing images from a 1992 project in Lebanon to Safar’s companion publication. He says he was invited to participate after he raised concerns about the show’s lack of local content: “Rather than be inconspicuous by my absence, I decided to be more conspicuous by my presence.” He says the museum’s sensitivity in dealing with aboriginal art and cultural production led him to expect the same from this show. “While I’m glad they are programming work from the Middle East – and Asia, in the future – in this exhibition, there’s a lack of works that engage, or have much relevance to, many of the viewers that are coming from here,” he says.

For her part, Baird says the project was driven by an international focus. “What we wanted to do is to bring some of the stories and experiences of people who have direct relationships to those places, as opposed to rather more distant relationships, possibly,” she says. Daftari, who is based in New York and has never lived in Canada, seems prepared for critiques. “I cannot predict what controversies will arise, although I do not doubt that some will,” she says. “It is in the nature of this kind of project.”

In 2006, Daftari organized an exhibition of Islamic artists, Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking, which questioned using artists’ origins as an organizing principle for exhibitions. But, she says, she was told Vancouver residents knew little about art from the Middle East. “In places where familiarity is lacking, regional exhibitions may be a necessary evil, which should be fast overcome with other exhibitions focusing perhaps on individuals or themes that could include artists from anywhere in the world,” she says.

In conjunction with Safar, the museum has organized educational events such as talks, concerts and films about Middle Eastern culture. As well, several loosely related exhibitions have been held at other regional galleries. For instance, Presentation House Gallery in North Vancouver is presenting the Canadian debut of the artist collective Slavs and Tatars, whose exhibition explores a shared genealogy between Iran and Poland, until May 26.

For Tanavoli, any project that increases awareness about the region’s cultural achievements is welcome. “All the news that reaches here about the Middle East is rather negative news, bad news, terrorism and that sort of thing,” he says. “But that’s not all – a lot of other things are happening there. It is a good idea to bring some of the positive news here.”

Safar/Voyage: Contemporary Works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists is showing at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver until Sept. 15, 2013.