The gallery Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is proud to present Zinnia Naqvi's solo exhibition: "Yours to Discover (2019 - ongoing)"
This project looks at found photographs of Naqvi's family visiting popular tourist destinations in Ontario as a means of re-examining commonly accepted ideals of Canadian culture. The images in the forefront are of the artist's family, taken in the late 1980s when they were considering the prospect of immigrating to Canada.
Naqvi examines three specific sites and the way they have been staged to educate the public on Canadian ideals and values. At Niagara Falls, we witness the greatness and superior force of Canadian natural phenomena; at the CN Tower we understand new technological and architectural advancement, and at Cullen Gardens and Miniature Village, we observe miniature examples of ideal models of communities.
Within the larger photo frame, Naqvi creates her own stage and pairs artifacts from her childhood, toys, research materials, excerpts from the family album, and board games which have similar educational values to the ones we are meant to gain from visiting these tourist destinations. These images are created within the home-studio, a space in which the artist makes findings and interprets what it means to be an acceptable Canadian citizen. In this project Naqvi uses the family archive to question her and her family's place as settler immigrants in Canada, and the structures and strategies that have allowed them to be part of the larger colonial project of this nation.
In PFOAC's video room, the visitor will encounter:
"An Exotic Bird Does Not Tweet" (2019)
5min 23sec
In this video we see the hands of the artist playing the popular game Jenga. In this game, players must delicately pull-out blocks while attempting to keep the main structure intact. In the background we see an image of the Toronto skyline and colourful children's blocks. The gesture of this game is used as a metaphor for trying to succeed in one's career while spreading themselves very thin.
Until January 15, 2022, Dazibao presents Zinnia Naqvi's first major solo exhibition "the Translation is Approximate" which includes her first fiction short film developed with support from the PRIM-Dazibao production-dissemination residency.
The gallery thanks SODEC for its support.
Zinnia Naqvi (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal and Tkaronto/Toronto. In her practice, she examines questions of colonialism, cultural translation, language, and gender through photography, video, the written word, and archival documents. Her recent works include archival images and reconstructions of these images; experimental documentary films; video installations; texts, and photographs. Her works invite spectators to examine her process and working methods. Naqvi's works have been exhibited in Canada and abroad. She is the recipient of an honourable mention at the Karachi Biennale in Pakistan in 2017 and the New Generation Photography Award, organized by the Canadian Photography Institute and the National Gallery of Canada, in 2019. A member of the working group EMILIA-AMALIA, an intergenerational feminist collective, she holds a BFA in photographic studies from X University and an MFA from Concordia University.