Art Connects | Artist Talk: Matilda Aslizadeh with Grant Arnold

Stay home. Stay safe. Stay connected with our new series of online gatherings, Art Connects!

In response to the temporary closure of the exhibition spaces due to the current global health pandemic, the Gallery has launched Art Connects to encourage dialogue and connection in the era of physical distancing.

Every Tuesday and Friday, the Gallery will stream live and interactive conversations into your homes, featuring guests from local and international arts communities. Everyone is invited to join through the webinar platform Zoom.

As we navigate these strange and uncertain times, it’s important to remember that art has the power to connect individuals, communities and cultures. No matter its form, art encourages communication, broadens perspectives, enriches the mind and renews the spirit.

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Artist Talk: Matilda Aslizadeh
with Grant Arnold

Tuesday, April 14 | 1:30 PM

REGISTER

Matilda Aslizadeh’s sculptural video installation Moly and Kassandra (2018) addresses the relationship between culture and resource extraction by precisely interweaving statistical charts with images of monumental excavations into the surface of the earth and scenes of operatic divination.

Join the artist, in conversation with Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art, to discuss themes of economic policy, divination and agency in her work and the upcoming exhibition NEXT Matilda Aslizadeh: Moly and Kassandra.

Questions? Submit them when you register or during the Zoom presentation using the Q&A function.

This discussion will be moderated by Melissa Lee, Director of Education and Public Programs.

NEXT Matilda Aslizadeh is part of Capture Photography Festival’s 2020 Selected Exhibition Program.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Matilda Aslizadeh is a visual artist based in Vancouver, BC. Her media installations are characterized by dense visual surfaces and unexpected juxtapositions drawn from a range of influences including early cinema, cartography and fashion. Deeply invested in exploring the critical potential of immersive spectacle, the ambivalent centrality of storytelling in human existence, and the fluid threshold between documentation and fictionalization, Aslizadeh’s work locates political thinking firmly within affective experience. Aslizadeh received a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and festivals, and has been the subject of several solo exhibitions including at AC Institute (New York), Foreman Art Gallery (Sherbrooke), Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (Kitchener), Simon Fraser University Gallery (Burnaby), La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (Montreal), SKOL Centre des Arts Actuels (Montreal), Or Gallery (Vancouver) and Artspeak (Vancouver). Aslizadeh also teaches at various post-secondary institutions in Vancouver and is a member of art/mamas: a collective of artist mothers that will be participating in PLOT, a community-based studio residency at Access Gallery in the spring and summer of 2020.

Grant Arnold is Audain Curator of British Columbia Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where he contributes to the exhibition program and development of the collection. Recent exhibition projects include Rapture, Rhythm and the Tree of Life: Emily Carr and Her Female Contemporaries; Mowry Baden; Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube, Kevin Schmidt: We Are the Robots; Pictures From Here; Susan Point: Spindle Whorl (with Ian Thom); Stephen Waddell: Dark Matter Atlas; Harry Callahan: The Street; Jerry Pethick: Shooting the Sun/Splitting the Pie; Residue: The Persistence of the Real; Emily Carr and Landon Mackenzie: Wood Chopper and the Monkey; Myfanwy MacLeod, or There and Back Again (with Cassandra Getty); In Dialogue with Carr – Gareth Moore: Allochthonous Window; and SPIRITLANDS: (t)HERE Marian Penner Bancroft Selected Photo Works 1975–2000. Arnold has contributed essays to a number of publications and has lectured on historical and contemporary art at a variety of conferences and institutions. He received his MA in Art History from the University of British Columbia in 1996, after studying at the University of Saskatchewan and the Banff School of Fine Arts.