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Opening Reception: Oct 30, 2024 | 6-9 pm
Conversation between Olumoroti Soji-George and Pegah Tabassinejad: November 9, 2024 | 2-3:30 pm
Exhibition dates: Oct 31 — Nov 20. Tue-Fri + Nov 9, 10, 16, 17: 12-6pm
Free and no registration required.
"And so she goes looking, searching without asking, sifting through whatever the city and its bodies reveal, not wanting to excavate or exhume, not wanting to make a noise or draw attention to herself.” trans(re)lating house one - Poupeh Missaghi.
Continuing in her recurrent exploration of the political and social implications of the aesthetics of lens-based surveillance performances and digital culture, Pegah Tabassinejad’s new body of work, Entropic Fields of Displacement, attends to questions of transnational feminist subjectivity amongst West Asian women and the geographic confines by which these women move and are perceived through space and time.
Entropic Fields Of Displacement features an amalgamation of sound and images that act as an ecosystem for an eight-channel video installation assembled by Tabassinejad. These works establish themselves as windows or, perhaps, portals that trace the movement of eight West Asian women as they are guided by the artist and serendipity in an exploration of the cityscapes of Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Germany and Canada.
In the course of their exploration, the women participate in a collective experience of unravelling the power that curtails their movements in the locations they find themselves situated within, chance encounters with other bodies and structures that unearth the limits imposed on their bodies and the potential pleasure and agency that comes from being both the subject of a surveilling gaze as well as holding another sort of surveilling gaze.
Tabassinejad’s work situates itself within an ongoing canon of feminist cultural production that deduces the potential of liberatory acts of resistance that shroud themselves within minor and ordinary gestures such as wandering, running, listening, and looking.
The images within the frame of Tabassinejad's works act as beacons, invitations and confrontations to their viewers and propose a praxis of emancipated spectatorship that subverts the preconceived notions and social powers that dictate how the bodies and likeness of the marginalized are discerned and surveilled.
Olumoroti Soji-George
VIVO is located in the homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples in a warehouse space at 2625 Kaslo Street south of East Broadway at the end of E 10th. Transit line 9 stops at Kaslo Street on Broadway. From the bus stop, the path is paved, curbless, and on a slight decline. The closest skytrain station is Renfrew Station, which is three blocks south-east of VIVO and has an elevator. From there, the path is paved, curbless, and on a slight incline. There is parking available at VIVO, including wheelchair access parking. There is a bike rack at the entrance. The front entrance leads indoors to a set of 7 stairs to the lobby.
A wheelchair ramp is located at the west side of the main entrance. The ramp has two runs: the first run is 20 feet long, and the second run is 26 feet. The ramp is 60 inches wide. The slope is 1:12. The ramp itself is concrete and has handrails on both sides. There is an outward swinging door (34 inch width) at the top of the ramp leading to a vestibule. A second outward swinging door (33 inch width) opens into the exhibition space. Buzzers and intercoms are located at both doors to notify staff during regular office hours or events to unlock the doors. Once unlocked, visitors can use automatic operators to open the doors.
There are two all-gender washrooms. One has a stall and is not wheelchair accessible. The other is a single room with a urinal and is wheelchair accessible: the door is 33 inches wide and inward swinging, without automation. The toilet has 11 inch clearance on the left side and a handrail.
To reach the bathrooms from the studio, exit through the double doors and proceed straight through the lobby and down the hall . Turn left, and the two bathrooms will be on your right side. The closest one has a stall and is not wheelchair accessible. The far bathroom is accessible.
Pegah Tabassinejad is an Interdisciplinary artist, educator, and wanderer living and working as a stranger—an uninvited guest—on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh, and Sel̓ íl̓ witulh people.
Tabassinejad's new media practice primarily revolves around the construction of digital and live performances, video installations and city projects.
Her practice acts as an interrogation on themes that include the intersection of digital and surveillance culture on identity, virtual and physical presences and absences, and the forces that structure and shape the movement and perception of marginalized bodies in private and public space.
Tabassinejad holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Simon Fraser University and a BA in Stage Direction from the Art University in Tehran. Her projects have been shown locally and internationally in Europe, North America, and West Asia.
Her notable projects include “Game [3 Berlin/Tehran]” (Volksbühne am Rosa Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin), “Game [2 Vancouver]” (VIVO Media Arts, Vancouver), and showcasing the film at Cineworks Independent FilmMakers Society, “Winter/Interior/A Doll’s House” (Iranshahr Theater Hall – Tehran), “Monitoring [Tehran]” at TADAEX04 (Tehran Annual Digital Art Exhibition).
Olumoroti Soji-George holds a BA (in Art, Performance and Cinema Studies and History from Simon Fraser University (2021) and an MA in Curatorial Studies from Simon Fraser University (2022). He is the Director/Curator at Gallery Gachet and a sessional educator at Emily Carr University. He has curated several large and small-scale exhibitions and is currently the Director/Curator of Gallery Gachet and the curatorial lead and Co-Director of the Black Art Centre. He was the 2021 recipient of the SFU Graduate Entrance Award and the 2022 recipient of the SFU Service Award. He currently works and lives in Vancouver, BC.
