Aporia

Rah Eleh

A Space Main Gallery

March 1 – May 7, 2022

Artist Tours and Talk March 19, 2022, 1:00 pm–4:00 pm

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Aporia is an exhibition consisting of the SuperNova installation plus new work. The new work is a triptych and multimedia installation based on Rah’s XenoFuturist proposal. SuperNova is a talent show parody that consists of seven characters Rah Eleh performs. The performers are Oreo, Fatimeh, and Coco and each of their acts examine issues of race and ethnic performance; Oreo performs a magic trick with a deck of white “race cards,” Fatimeh sings and performs a neo-orientalist ethnic identity and Coco performs a dance as a diasporic and hybrid subject. The characters perform in the galaxy Messier 82 and present their talent in front of a panel of judges; Sirius, Mira and Bellatrix. The talent show sets an ideal stage to critically examine race and ethnic performance.

Biographies

Rah Eleh is a video, net and performance artist. Rah’s work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at spaces including: Images Festival (Toronto), Museum London, Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa), Williams College Museum of Art (Williamstown, Massachusetts), Miami Art Basel, Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem, Netherlands), Pao Festival (Oslo, Norway), Kunst Am Spreeknie (Berlin, Germany), Kunsthaus Graz Museum (Graz, Austria), and Onassis Cultural Center (Athens, Greece). She has been the recipient of numerous awards including: Chalmers Arts Fellowship, finalist for Team Canada in Digital Arts, Conseil Des Arts et Des Lettres Du Quebec Research/Production grant for Digital Arts (2014) and Film (2015), and a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. She has been awarded several residencies including the Koumaria Residency (Greece, 2016), AX Gallery (Berlin 2016), MUU Galleria (Helsinki, 2015), Studio Das Weisse Haus (Vienna, 2014) and the Artslant Georgia Fee Residency (Paris). Rah is represented by Vtape, Canada’s leading artist-run distributor for video art.