Hadi Jamali | (in)stability

Hadi Jamali is an artist working at the intersection of mixed-material installation, interactivity, and time-based media. His practice explores the recuperation of images, words, sounds, and marginalia from archival and historical materials. Using spatialized arrangements, his recent work examines dominant visual traditions and their entanglement with contemporary forms of (dis)location—geographic, cognitive, temporal, and moral.

Originally from Tehran, Hadi is based in Tiohtiá:ke / Montreal and holds a BFA and MFA in Intermedia Art from Concordia University.

www.hadijamali.com

Imagine an old city in miniature, built on a large round table that becomes unstable in response to your presence. Darkness engulfs entire streets and neighborhoods, flowing from district to district like an ominous tide. Can you feel your body sway with the current? Can you envision the inhabitants caught up in the confusion?

During his EKWC residency, artist Hadi Jamali created 203 segments of the city in ceramics that all needed careful treatment. The repetitive task of smoothing surfaces and fixing the roofs kept some of the tensions at bay that underlie this powerful installation.

The work evokes the volatile political situation in a region considered to be the cradle of civilization, but it can serve equally well as a model for global destabilization happening right in front of our eyes.

Currently in residence at Centre de production DAÏMÔN, the next phase of the project is being developed: transforming the static cityscape into a responsive, kinetic installation that senses and reacts to the viewer’s presence. Through subtle shifts and interactions, the viewer becomes part of the instability—complicit in its motion and meaning.