Matilda Aslizadeh's Moly and Kassandra MOLY AND KASSANDRAWHEN: August 1-30, 2024Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 12-6PMOpening Reception: Saturday, August 3rd, 2024WHERE: EMMEDIA Main Space, 2005B 10 Ave SW, Calgary AB Moly and Kassandra is a three-channel sculptural video installation that brings together seemingly unrelated things: emotional operatic performances, dry statistical charts, and precariously propped-up scenery flats.Standing amid an open-pit molybdenum mine, evocative of an ancient amphitheatre, the prophet Kassandra sings the history and fate of this commodity from the point of view of 1979—a pivotal date marking the shift from Keynesian to neo-liberal economic policy in Western democracies. Clad in the year’s haute couture clothing, her songs are musicalscale translations of economic charts that trace the production and value of molybdenum, an element used primarily in strengthening steel alloys and inextricably linked to the weapons industry. From the standpoint of the not-too-distant past, Kassandra, whose name means “to raise,” warns of the volatility and environmental devastation wrought by neo-liberal capitalism; unfortunately, similar to her ancient Greek namesake, she is cursed to inspire only disbelief. Alongside this exhibition, we are hosting a series of screenings over the exhibition period. lines of descent screenings Thank you to our funders Canada Council for the Arts, Calgary Arts Development and Alberta Foundation for the Arts. About MatildaMatilda Aslizadeh’s media installations and photo-based works are characterized by dense visual surfaces and unexpected juxtapositions drawn from a range of photographic, cinematic, and painterly influences. Deeply invested in exploring the critical potential of immersive spectacle, the ambivalent centrality of storytelling in human existence, and the fluid threshold between documentation and fictionalization, Aslizadeh’s work locates political thinking firmly within affective experience. Her projects have been exhibited internationally in galleries and festivals, including solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, AC Institute (New York), and Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, and group exhibitions at the Audain Museum (Whistler) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto. She is based in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Tsleil-Waututh, and xwməθkwəýəm Nations.
