Bearing the Broken Utopian Promise
Roja Aslani, Heather Passmore
A Space Main Gallery
June 3 – July 17, 2009
Curated by: Khadija Siddiqui
In this two-person exhibition, artists Roja Aslani and Heather Passmore challenge the importance of social hierarchies and the significance of truth through re-contextualising quotidian objects. By manipulating and tampering devaluated mass-produced materials, Alsani and Passmore embed new fictitious meanings in the reality of discarded objects.
While Aslani fabricates interiors with the intention of intertwining the reality of the objects with the fantasies they collectively present; Passmore incorporates paint and newspaper images to question the untold truth of already stained mattresses. The fictitious connections and stories, now weaved into each object, blur the traces of their societal reality with that of social myths.
Biographies
Roja Aslani is a Persian Canadian artist currently living and working in Edinburgh, UK. Roja has a Psychology degree and a BFA from Canada ¬¬and an MFA in Sculpture from The Edinburgh College of Art, UK. Roja has exhibited across Canada as well as Germany and the United Kingdom. Upcoming shows include a group show in London UK, a two-man show in Toronto, a solo in Calgary and Kelowna.
Heather Passmore is an artist based in Vancouver where she obtained an MFA from UBC in 2004. She has since exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and internationally. Heather uses painting, drawing, and photography to explore the politics of taste, class, and art through the reconfiguration of quotidian, outdated, and discarded media. She recently completed an international artist residency in Norway.
Khadija Siddiqui is an emerging curator and painter based in Toronto. In 2008, she has received a BFA in Criticism & Curatorial Practice studies from the Ontario College of Art & Design. Her final year thesis project consisted of an essay and website on the ethics and representation of visual truth.