Shahla Bahrami

Trade, teabags and censorship.

by

Three striking photographs by Iranian Canadian artist Shahla Bahrami, posted in the glass entryway leading to the Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain station, are part of a series titled Censorship and Autocensorship ­– I bite my tongue. Curated by Zoë Chan, former assistant curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the Capture Photography Festival, and on view until Aug. 31, the images juxtapose decorative objects with tea and spices on a stark black background.

Shaer, Nevissandeh, Rooznamehnegar / Poet, writer, journalist is a quiet image, like others in the series, and its sombre palette is in contrast to the types of colourful ads typically displayed at transit stations. Teabags with Farsi inscriptions sit in and next to an ornate metal box, offering a reflective moment amidst the ambient sounds of downtown. 

Removed from their usual context, the tea bags gesture to the absence of warm social gatherings where tea is often shared, evoking isolation and loneliness. This sense of alienation is emphasized by the poetics of refusal, which allow or prevent passersby from making meaning based on their familiarity with Farsi. Bahrami says the round metal box refers to confinement: “Three tea bags, one inside and two next to it, illustrate detention and isolation,” she says. The plush red fabric that lines the box conveys a textured silence, one evoking velvet upholstery, hushed rooms and bureaucratic secrecy.

In Hich o Pooch / Nothing and void, bay leaves with Farsi calligraphy are placed in a small partially open jewelry box. Spices, like tea, have long been part of intercontinental trade, particularly along the Silk Route, a network that connected Europe to Asia and the Middle East until the 14th century. This context, as well as trade’s role in colonization, points to the politics of Bahrami’s work, especially as this station is on the Canada Line, which transports travellers to and from the airport. As such, Bahrami’s photographs raise vital questions: Whose words are allowed to travel? Who takes precedence when gaining entry to another country? 

Honar va Honarmand / Art and artist is rife with implied violence. Torn bay leaves featuring fragments from the Farsi alphabet lay scattered beside a black mortar and pestle. Inside the marbled bowl, the Farsi words for art and artist, “honar” and “honarmand,” are written across two leaves nestled with coriander seeds, seemingly waiting to be ground to powder. Their adjacency is surprising as they represent extremes: a seed can grow into a leafy tree or be ground into powder before it has germinated or bloomed. 

Bahrami, who has participated in almost 100 international exhibitions, is a founding member of the Francophone artist-run centre, Voix Visuelle, in Ottawa. The power of her art rests in understatement and the important questions it raises. Her photographs, sensual yet stark, subtly evoke layered histories of silencing and censorship. ■

Shahla Bahrami, works from the Censorship and Autocensorship – I bite my tongue series, exhibited as part of the Capture Photography Festival at the Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain Station from April 1 to Aug. 31, 2022. 

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Vancouver City Centre Station

Vancouver, British Columbia V7Y 1K1