Quick Pick — Iranian Fairytale Inspiration for Installation

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Naghmeh Sharifi, still from “Fading Fables (Zar-Afshun),” 2024, digital video and sound installation (courtesy of the artist and the Art Gallery of St. Albert)

As a child growing up in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian-Canadian artist Naghmeh Sharifi remembers a fairytale that her grandmother would tell her as a bedtime story. 

Now Sharifi has used those memories as inspiration for Fading Fables (Zar-Afshun), an audio-visual installation on now through Aug. 23, 2025 at the Art Gallery of St. Albert in Alberta. 

Before Sharifi’s grandmother died, Sharifi recorded her telling the story one last time. “In the exhibition, her grandmother’s recorded voice sets the pace of the story, with the visuals capturing the action of drawing and erasing, as if the story is being created in real time,” according to the gallery notes. 

“Projected across multiple pieces of gauzy fabric, the characters of the story shift and change, morphing as the story progresses.”

Based in Montreal, Sharifi holds a bachelor of arts in Visual Arts and a BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia as well as a master of fine arts in Painting and Drawing from Concordia University. Her work has been shown around the world, including Iran, Germany, France, Italy, Mexico, United States, Canada and Macedonia. ■

Naghmeh Sharifi, Fading Fables (Zar-Afshun) is on now through Aug. 23, 2025 at the Art Gallery of St. Albert in Alberta. 

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