Gita Hashemi (

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

: گیتا هاشمی, born 1961) is an Iranian-born artist, writer and curator residing in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Her work juxtaposes history and the present, political and personal, and local and global. It draws on language as both visual and narrative element, and includes installation, video, and performance art, with collaborative, participatory and interactive strategies.

Biography

Hashemi was born in

Shiraz Shiraz (; ) is the List of largest cities of Iran, fifth-most-populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars province, which has been historically known as Pars (Sasanian province), Pars () and Persis. As of the 2016 national census, the popu ...

. Due to her vocal political stance, Hashemi was expelled from the College of Fine Arts at the University of Iran. In 1984, she was forced to leave

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. She is known for her maxim, "The personal is poetic, the poetic is political, the political is personal." As an artist, she is less interested in working in the artistic mainstream and more interested in using art for activism.

Career

She is the first Iranian artist to perform calligraphy as a live art, which she refers to as embodied writing. She was an early practitioner of

Net art upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden Internet art (also known as net art or web art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance o ...

and

Digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

(early-1990s to mid-2000s). Her narrative

CD-R CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can only be Write once read many, written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) ...

''Of Shifting Shadows: Revisiting the 1979 Iranian Revolution through an Exilic Journey in History and Memory'' (2000) is a comprehensive artistic account of the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...

and has been exhibited widely. '' Leonardo'' wrote that ''Of Shifting Shadows'' causes the viewer to "move like nomads around this place of images and sounds, locating the place where we can arrive at an understanding of the depth of these experiences." In 2013, she showed an exhibit called ''The Idea of Freedom'' at the Montréal Arts Interculturels (MAI). The Hemispheric Institute wrote that ''The Idea of Freedom'' looks at the events in Iranian history and then "channels them into insights that are as personal as they are political." In 2017, she was the first artist to use the Open Space Lab at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

where she created large-scale

calligraphy Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...

based on the memoirs of a friend. She has won the Ontario Association of Art Galleries' 2017 Monographic Exhibition of the Year for the monumental interdisciplinary performance ''Grounding'', and the Baddeck International New Media Festival award for disk-based work for ''Of Shifting Shadows.'' Her work has been shown at the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum and at the (Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Yucatan).

Publications

* ''Like Flesh and Blood'' * ''Afghanistan, 2002: No Refuge'' * ''The Idea of Freedom by Gita Hashemi'' * *

References

External links

Gita Hashemi, Tirgan

Hashemi's List of Publications

Gita Hashemi's Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hashemi, Gita 1961 births Living people Artists from Toronto Canadian performance artists Women performance artists 20th-century Canadian women artists 21st-century Canadian women artists Iranian emigrants to Canada 20th-century Iranian women artists 21st-century Iranian women artists 21st-century Iranian women writers Iranian writers Writers from Toronto