Across Burning Glass, Reading Stone, a Reader-in-Residence program brings readers into dialogue with each image set. In this episode, the Blackwood is pleased to welcome artist Xuan Ye into dialogue with Shaheer Zazai in the context of Zazai's exhibition Is, but will be.

In an interview mixed and overlaid with Ye's musical compositions and sonic textures using a modular synthesizer, the two artists discuss Zazai's working method using code in Microsoft Word, his relationships to Afghan-Canadian identity and diaspora, and his use of abstraction within and against Western art canons.



Xuan Ye 叶轩 (CA/CN) makes mixed media installations and performances as media poetry, synthesizing language, code, sound, body, image, data, light, and time. Their work makes noises in the speculative space of sensorium, coupling with more-than-human agencies (internet, artificial intelligence, electricity and circuits, and non-human organisms) to experiment with meaning-becoming and world-building. X’s work has been featured, exhibited, and performed internationally, including Transmediale (2021), Hearth (CA), Center of the Experimental Film (CN), Fonderie Darling (CA), Varley Art Gallery of Markham (CA), Canadian Art, the AGO (CA), Vivid Projects (UK), Supermarket Art Fair (SE), InterAccess (CA), Inside-out Art Museum (CN), Goethe-Institut (Beijing & Montreal), ArtAsiaPacific, KUNSTFORUM (GE), Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center (US), Trinity Square Video (CA), Times Museum (CN), among others. X’s live performances and music releases have received critical accolades from Bandcamp, Musicworks, and Exclaim!.

See Connections ⤴


Shaheer Zazai is a Toronto-based Afghan-Canadian artist with a studio practice both in painting and digital media. His practice focuses on exploring and attempting to investigate the development of cultural identity in the present geopolitical climate and diaspora. Zazai’s digital works make use of Microsoft Word and imagery drawn from traditional Afghan carpets. Through mimicking carpet-making methods, Zazai creates his own designs in Microsoft Word, where every knot of a carpet is translated into a typed character. Zazai received a BFA from OCAD University in 2011 and was the OCAD University Digital Painting Atelier Artist in Residence in 2015 for the production of his first Digital Carpet. He is a recipient of Ontario Arts Council grants, and has participated in group and solo exhibitions at the Walper Hotel in Kitchener (CAFKA), the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Hazelton Lanes Art Festival, Double Happiness Projects, Capacity 3 Gallery, Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, and Patel Brown Gallery. Zazai was also a finalist for EQ Bank’s Emerging Digital Artist Award in 2018. His digital works have been covered by CBC Arts in 2018 and Ajam Media Collective in 2019.

See Connections ⤴

Introduced by Laura Tibi, Educator-in-Residence.

Music: "Bass Rider" by Podington Bear. Used under Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0 license.

Please note: the in-person portion of this interview was conducted in late Fall 2020 before additional lockdown measures came into effect.

Download an episode transcript below.

Media & Resources

Transmissions 3: Is, but will be

A Reader-in-Residence conversation with Xuan Ye and Shaheer Zazai
▶
Listen
↓ Download