A new site-specific commission *Terms and Conditions Apply by Ghazaleh Avarzamani, an Aga Khan Museum-Delfina Foundation joint artist-in-residence, is on view at The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, from 6 November 2021 to 27 February 2022.
Avarzamani’s newly-commissioned large-scale installations are currently being exhibited at the Aga Khan Museum, a purpose-built institution which opened in 2014 to showcase the arts of Muslim civilisations across the centuries from the Iberian Peninsula to China.
Consisting of 30 stained-glass mosaics in the second floor gallery and 24 tons of blue rubber mulch which now fill the decorative pools that surround the museum, Avarzamani’s installations comment on invisible power structures that shape how we navigate the world, seeking to draw attention to the systems of control that pervade our environments and urge viewers to question their impact on our behaviour – ideas central to the artist’s existing practice.
These new works are the outcome of Avarzamani’s nine-month period as artist-in-residence at the museum, during which she investigated it’s collection with the aim of producing new ways of seeing, relating to and understanding it. Through her interactions with museum’s curators and conservators, she became interested in the efforts entailed in preserving the artefacts in the collection, from controlling the air temperature to display rotation schedules — all of which impact on the viewer’s experience.
About the residency
Avarzamani was selected as the Aga Khan Museum-Delfina Foundation artist-in-residence in late 2020. The focus of this residency is to support a local contemporary artist to explore Aga Khan Museum’s collection and site and produce a response. Based in Toronto, Avarzamani had been due to undertake the first leg of the joint residency in London at Delfina Foundation. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this part of the residency was postponed and with support from the Aga Khan Museum’s curators, conservators, and educators, she went began investigating the museum’s collection with remote mentorship from the team at Delfina Foundation. Avarzamani will now undertake her residency in London in spring 2022, where she will give a public presentation about the work she has produced.
Credits
*Terms and Conditions Apply is presented in collaboration with Delfina Foundation with support from the UK Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Museum.
Biograpahy
Born in Iran in 1979, Ghazaleh Avarzamani moved to Canada in 2016 and has subsequently undertaken residencies at the Banff Centre, MOCA Toronto, SOMA Summer in Mexico City, Red Mansion in Beijing, and Greatmore in Cape Town. She has presented recent solo exhibitions at the MOCA Toronto, Galerie Nicolas Roberts in Montreal, the Koffler Gallery in Toronto, the Ab-Anbar Gallery in Tehran, and Asia House and Light Gallery in London.
After completing her MA in Fine Art at London’s Central Saint Martins in 2013, Avarzamani was nominated for the Mall Galleries’ 2013 Threadneedle Prize. Her large-scale installations and sculptural re-assemblages question power structures by investigating their rules and methodologies while considering a range of spaces for interactivity, self-development, and play.