This art show is Too Big to Fail

For the students in the Ontario College of Art and Design's Interdisciplinary Master's in Art and Design program, "Too Big to Fail" isn't just the name of their year-end exhibition. It's become kind of a rallying cry. 

The long-tail effects of COVID meant that things like visa delays ballooned the number of students in the program to a record-setting 32 — something that has both advantages and disadvantages, according to Deepikah Bhardwaj and Hala Alsalman, who are both presenting in and co-curating the show.

"We have this lovely, very international, diverse group of very talented artists from all kinds of disciplines, which has been really inspiring for me as a creative," says Alsalman. 

On the other hand, says Bhardwaj, the wide variety of perspectives and styles — and just the sheer number of pieces and bodies in the room — makes putting a show together challenging.

"There are 32 of us from various countries — India, China, Iran, Iraq, Peru, Nepal, U.S.A., Canada — and we were like 'OK, what do we have in common?," she says. "There's not much we all agree on, and it's really rare to get us all on the same page. But none of us want to fail and we're all hustlers."

The other common thread running through the show, Bhardwaj says, is a desire to push against established structures and systems.

They Stole Our Eyes (but We Still See)

Alsalman — who was a journalist and filmmaker for almost 15 years before taking a timeout to enter the program — says that "being such a culturally diverse cohort, a lot of people are bringing up concerns with the motherland," including herself. An Iraqi-Canadian, her piece "They Stole Our Eyes (but We Still See)" was done to mark the 20th anniversary of the looting of the Iraqi National Museum during the invasion of Iraq. The contents of the museum largely wound up in the hands of private collectors. She became particularly focused on the eye inlays of Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian statues.

"Eye inlays are basically the eyes that you would find on a statue that, for some reason, are not a statue anymore," she says. "I went down the rabbit hole of the antiquities black market ... and I found these eyes. The market was flooded with all kinds of items after 2003, but I used the eyes to highlight the issue. That's why I called it 'They Stole Our Eyes (but We Still See).' They're selling them on eBay. Everywhere from eBay to Sotheby's and Christie's."

The piece drives home the oddity and tragedy of the stolen eyes by superimposing them over various scenes from Iraq. She adds that the looting of the museum is just the latest in a long history of looting of the region by Western powers.

"The most important artifacts are not in Iraq, they're actually in Berlin and London," she says. "The Iraqi government has actually been petitioning some of these museums to try to repatriate these amazing items, like the Gates of Ishtar." 

What does your personal brand hide about yourself?

Afifa Bari is pushing back on a very different sort of structure. Her untitled piece looks at how young people, particularly women, are being told to brand and rebrand themselves to "get ahead."

"It was around the New Year when I started seeing all these videos about 'rebranding yourself' and the 'That Girl aestheticism'" she says. "And that got me thinking a little bit ... why are you presenting as a brand? Because these aren't business owners, these are quote-unquote regular girls who are rebranding themselves."

She says the piece, a misshapen reflective surface that constantly distorts your image back at you, is meant to get viewers to ask who they really are if they're constantly being asked to re-brand and re-present themselves for the benefit of others.

"What are you hiding in that constant distortion?" she asks.

Bhardwaj says that for her and her colleagues, putting together a show of this size and magnitude — which includes almost every conceivable medium, including textile art, video and painting — has been an enlightening experience as both curators and artists.

"I think all of us would agree that we have become more open and more accepting of ideas," she says. "I think expands the your view, just [working with such a big group]."

Too Big to Fail runs at the Open Space Gallery in Toronto (49 McCaul St.) until April 13.