#CripRitual artist and Doris McCarthy Gallery Educator-in-Residence Maryam Hafizirad presents a talk about Deaf View/Image Art (also known as De'VIA), co-presented by Tangled Art + Disability and the Doris McCarthy Gallery.

As outlined in the De’VIA Manifesto (1989), De’VIA is created when artists explore Deaf experience on a personal, cultural, or physical level, using formal art elements. De’VIA elements include:

• Intense and contrasting colours;

• Contrasting textures and values that highlight Deaf experience;

• Emphasis on eyes, mouths, ears and hands;

• Motifs and metaphors, insights and perspectives that reflect Deaf experience.

Maryam will approach this topic from her perspective as a Deaf visual artist, sharing her work and lived experience as part of the presentation.

This free program is open to everyone. It will be hosted on Zoom and will have ASL interpretation and captioning. If you have other accommodation needs, please let us know when registering or contact dmg.utsc@utoronto.ca.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Maryam Hafizirad is an international award-winning Deaf Canadian Persian painter and sculptor. She is a freelance visual artist, curator, teacher, mentor, and advocate for Deaf artists. A graduate of Isfahan University of Fine Arts (2002), her exhibitions have been featured in Iran, China, Germany, Malaysia, India, Canada, and the United States. Maryam’s Persian classical early works were dark in subject and colour, with women’s faces and bodies forbidden. When she moved to Malaysia and settled in Canada, her work transformed. She began painting using Persian and Deaf View Image Art (De’VIA) metaphors with strong contrasting colours and textures, and incorporating Deaf experience and values. Pomegranates were symbols of hidden love released, fish in water represented sincere human beings in her silent world of pure visual beauty, and birds embodied her newfound freedom as a Deaf woman in this new country. Maryam studied ceramic sculpting with Keyvan Fehri, master sculptor of ancient Persian ceramic firing techniques. Her recent work includes Persian and De’VIA symbols in large mixed-media installations combining ceramics, colourful glazed sculptures, large eyes, and handshapes. These installations affirm her Deaf identity, graceful sign language, quiet strength, and the visual beauty of life itself.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This talk is presented as part of the programming for #CripRitual, multi-site and online exhibition featuring works by more than 20 artists curated by the Critical Design Lab, co-presented by the Doris McCarthy Gallery and Tangled Art + Disability from January 21 - April 1, 2022.

The exhibition features artworks that illustrate and create examples of crip rituals — practices that disabled, crip, d/Deaf, Mad, and Sick people undertake alone and in groups to care for each other, build political and social power, survive in the face of discrimination and oppression, and manage the ways that they are seen by others. This exhibition recognizes crip rituals as processes and events for surviving ableism and claiming power that may be secular, spiritual, political, or in-between.

Visit CripRitual.com for more information and to engage with the exhibition virtually.

ABOUT THE #CRIPRITUAL EDUCATOR-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

This program is one of the outcomes of Maryam Hafizirad's ongoing residency at the Doris McCarthy Gallery. The artist is participating in a five-month residency at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, researching, planning, and creating programming for the exhibition #CripRitual, with a focus on accessibility, and engaging the Deaf community.

Image credit: Maryam Hafizirad, The Story of My World, 2020.

Image description: A collection of colourful ceramic hands with fingers glazed in gold, some outstretched and some forming ASL handshapes.

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The Doris McCarthy Gallery provides an open space for the critical and civil exchange of ideas. By registering for this program you agree to help create an atmosphere of mutual inclusion and respect for all persons. This includes speaking, acting, and behaving in a way that is absent of violence, harassment, racism, intimidation, bullying or discrimination of any kind regardless of, and not limited to gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, culture, age and ability.

The Doris McCarthy Gallery at times records programs and events for the purposes of education, archive, and promotion. The Doris McCarthy Gallery will not use these recordings for commercial purposes. Participants will be notified at the beginning of a program or event when recordings will be taken. Please disable your video and/or microphone if you do not wish to be recorded.