Description
Adorer le flux examines the way languages, histories and places construct one’s identity. This artwork was included in the exhibition … de patience (… of patience) at Karsh-Masson Gallery (Ottawa) and is comprised of a series of triptychs composed of photographs, scanned images, and drawings of stones and water from Asinabka, or Victoria Island (Ottawa). Mana Rouholamini uses inspiration from Persian spoken language and folkloric stories. Suggestively, stones are said to be one of the kindest and most empathetic of listeners, as they hold and care for thoughts, concerns, and pains of those who confide in them. Similarly, an old Persian adage states that when you carry out an act of genuine love and kindness, offer it to the river and it will be returned to you in the desert when you are most in need. Water, like stones, carries and holds what we entrust in it. The importance of Victoria Island rests in the events that led to the Idle No More movement in 2012. This grassroots activism focused on, amongst many issues, the passage of Bill C-45, an overhaul of the Navigable Waters Protection Act of 1882. As an immigrant settling on this land, Rouholamini admits she unintentionally inherited a hand in its colonial past and tries to make sense of how this relates to her identity. The location and what happened here embodies the expression that initiated the series. Rouholamini has exhibited across Canada and internationally.