SuperNova

Friday, September 25, 2020 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 25, 2020 5:00 p.m.

Google Calendar ICS

Rah Eleh (TOR)

Celebration: Sept 25, 7:00 PM
Discussion: Sept 26, 3:00 PM

Still from the video work of the artist Rah Eleh where we can see 3 jury members looking at a stage with one participant ready to perform.

COVID-19: Due to current restrictions requiring the closure of the gallery, articule has decided to offer the public the opportunity to view the installation from the outside until October 25th. However, our schedule has changed and we will be open on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6:30PM to 8:30PM!

Please consult our website regularly for the most up to date information, especially in regards to online vs. in-person events.

Rah Eleh is presented simultaneously in collaboration with Art POP in the exhibition Opening Night/Soirée d’Ouverture: 23/09/2020 - 27/09/2020, at the Studio Rialto.
Artist talk at POP Symposium, 24/09/2020 at 4:00 PM, at the Rialto Hall.

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. Each judge is named after the brightest star in various constellations and each judge represents a character, Sirius mirrors Oreo, Mira mirrors Fatimeh, and Bellatrix mirrors Coco. The talent show sets an ideal stage to critically examine race and ethnic performance.

Stage design, projections, and lighting in articule’s space by supermedia_art.

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.

Exhibition text

The Cultural Pass Card

By Song-yi Lee

We, as members within a certain social sphere, struggle with the development of our identity that may collide with our society’s expectations.

How do I look and what do I sound like?
Am I ‘passable’ by the current mainstream standard?
How much am I recognized as belonging to this society?
We constantly fight this mind-battle to achieve social recognition – to achieve belonging.

The video installation SuperNova by Rah Eleh, a Toronto-based video and performance artist, deliberately and sarcastically mirrors our daily competition to ‘pass’ as legitimate members of our society: in other words, to be accepted as one who complies with social norm about ethnicity, skin color, gender, and many more. Rah as an Iranian-Canadian, woman of color, queer, and anglophone in a French Canadian community particularly points out the identity struggles of being on the marginalized side in North American culture, criticizing common practices of recklessly trying to fit into the Euro-centric cultural standard.

In this parody of a talent show, each of the three main characters (Oreo, Fatimeh and Coco) represents some of the most common tendencies related to identity struggle. Oreo goes for absolute ‘whiteness.’ As the judges note, with the white cards in her hands “she could pass.” Fatimeh goes for the opposite, presenting exotic oriental characteristics that seemingly intend to appeal for western fantasy of old and traditional orientalism. While Fatimeh is highly praised as “majestic and terrifying,” the change of the name to a more exotic one, “Gholdokt,” and her intentional use of foreign accent seem less authentic and even deceiving. Coco presents an abstract dance performance. Coco’s performance, that is “light years ahead” and refuses to communicate in common language, is in no way understood by the judges and the audience.

Seeing all the three characters onstage, we also struggle to decide which one should be the SuperNova of the show, and who suits the taste of the judges, the audience, and the mainstream cultural standard. What exactly is this standard anyway? We struggle to understand how it is even possible to rightfully judge anyone.

The video installation’s multiple screens allow visitors to explore different perspectives of the judges, the audience, and the contestants within the gallery. This multiple channel screening aims to offer the viewers an opportunity to see countless subjectivities and spaces in our society. So, in the gallery, how do you situate yourself? Are you judging or are you being judged? What is your verdict? Is this exhibition ‘passable’? Are you a ‘passable’ visitor?

Associated events