Zinnia Naqvi
the Translation is Approximate

From November 11, 2021 to January 15, 2022

— Facebook event

Production-dissemination residency in collaboration with PRIM

Dazibao presents Zinnia Naqvi’s first major solo exhibition. With support from the PRIM-Dazibao production-dissemination residency, Naqvi has directed her first fiction short film, Farzana. Complemented and contextualized by a selection of past text-based and installation works, the exhibition explores different ethical questions that arise when using images that are drawn from family archives. The repercussions of colonialism on personal experience and the search for identity are also key to Naqvi’s work, as she probes the deeper meaning of a practice involving documentary and testimonials.

Farzana (2021) — 33 min.
the Translation is Approximate (2021) — 10 min. 32 sec.

Both films were inspired by footage shot surreptitiously by Naqvi during a visit with her family in Karachi, Pakistan, several years ago. The video focuses on an argument between her aunt and the aunt’s domestic worker over financial matters. For many reasons — the ambivalence of the situation, the respective socioeconomic positions of the two women involved in the scene, and the very nature of the recording, which careened between documentary and voyeurism — these images have long haunted Naqvi.

In the Translation is Approximate, Naqvi retrieves the original footage that she shot in 2013 and traces back her thoughts about what motivated her to revisit this material. This short video both provides insight into her approach and fundamentally questions both the viewer’s relationship with truth and the dilemma between fiction and documentary.

Farzana is, in a way, an augmented reconstruction of the scene that Naqvi originally recorded of her family in Karachi. By slipping into the skin of each character, she examines the complex politics of social classes, the role of women, and that of domestic work. The more the tension grows between the two women, the more detailed the editing of the images and sound becomes, until it blots out the parameters that define the ideas of honesty, truth, and transparency. Ultimately, the film interrogates the part that images play in our comprehension of these concepts.

Seaview (2014) — 11 min. 59 sec.

For Seaview, Naqvi again went to Karachi, Pakistan, where her extended family lives. Combining home videos and casually shot sequences with texts and audio recordings, she delves into the difficulties of reassessing the past as a woman and an artist. She explores the tensions between Eastern and Western ideals through a mosaic of stories and experiences. More generally, she shares her hesitations about the limitations imposed by the use of a single medium on providing a true reflection of a place or a culture.

I’m getting a bit dizzy from the sun and the heat (Another desi with a camera) (2019)
A Border Passage (2019)

These works are excerpted from the series Yours to Discover (2019), in which Naqvi revisits photographs from her family archive taken during their visit to emblematic sites in Canada. Updating these images through reconstructions in which she assumes the role of people she doesn’t know, she examines what being Canadian means through her personal experience as an immigrant. The text portion of this work is a sort of fictional projection onto the stories of these unknown people, which also serves as a mirror for Naqvi. It should be noted that Yours to Discover integrates various other artefacts related to childhood, such as board games, suggesting values similar to those conveyed by a tourist attraction like Niagara Falls.

I Can Tell That Centering Myself Is Making You Uncomfortable (2019)
Having My Face On Your Wall Is Not Proof of Inclusivity (2019)
I Don't Know How to Not Exploit My Experience ( 2018)

These three works are part of the series I Just Have a Lot of Feelings (2018—). The incisive, personal words used by Naqvi reflect her repeated interactions with racism, misogyny, and precarious employment in the art field, amongst other related challenges. In these works, she makes use of humour, sarcasm, and irony to crystallize personal experiences and broadcast them to a wider community.

Zinnia Naqvi (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal and Tkaronto/Toronto. In her practice, she examines questions of colonialism, cultural translation, language, and gender through photography, video, the written word, and archival documents. Her recent works include archival images and reconstructions of these images; experimental documentary films; video installations; texts, and photographs. Her works invite spectators to examine her process and working methods. Naqvi’s works have been exhibited in Canada and abroad. She is the recipient of an honourable mention at the Karachi Biennale in Pakistan in 2017 and the New Generation Photography Award, organized by the Canadian Photography Institute and the National Gallery of Canada, in 2019. A member of the working group EMILIA-AMALIA, an intergenerational feminist collective, she holds a BFA in photographic studies from X University and an MFA from Concordia University. In addition to this exhibition, recent photographic works by Naqvi will be presented in February 2022 in a solo exhibition at Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain (Montreal).