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2022 Grounding the Green New Deal: A Summit on Design, Policy, and Advocacy (Credit: Allison Shelley/Landscape Architecture Foundation)
2022 Grounding the Green New Deal: A Summit on Design, Policy, and Advocacy (Credit: Allison Shelley/Landscape Architecture Foundation)
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
A Grounding system is a set of equipment needed to dissipate lightning currents, surge and transient voltages. Installing a proper grounding rod in accordance to the international grounding techniques not only protects your facility from damaging surges and spikes, but also keeps your facility safe from any ill effects of latent system failure. We are a full service firm aligned to solve your most complex challenge in grounding. Let us discuss your requirements at here: www.lightningprotection.com/grounding-rod-can-save-your-l...
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
The “Night of Stories and Art” was the idea of fourth-year medical student Paula Lucuara. (Pauley Chea/UConn Health Center Photo)
Featured on gaileguevara.blogspot.com/
Purchase from JENNIFER KOSTUIK ART GALLERY
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
A series of photos showing the effort to remove the Sarah Spencer from her grounding near the Southwestern Sales dock in Windsor Ontario.
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Paula Lucuara, fourth-year medical student and organizer of “Night of Stories and Art,” (left) with fourth-year student Naima Joseph. (Pauley Chea/UConn Health Center Photo)
Featured on gaileguevara.blogspot.com/
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Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University
A series of photos showing the effort to remove the Sarah Spencer from her grounding near the Southwestern Sales dock in Windsor Ontario.
Grounding: States of Gender
Gita Hashemi
Curated by Soheila Esfahani
Exhibition: January 9 – 29, 2026
Thursday, January 8 from 4–6PM
artLAB Gallery, JLVAC
Reproducing an Iranian woman’s auto-ethnography in a visually-striking immersive installation, Grounding was created over an 8-day livestreamed durational performance in February 2017. Heralding the global #Me-Too movement and the #WomanLifeFreedom uprising in Iran, in this installation Gita Hashemi puts gender-based violence and disparity – in fact, the very construction of gender itself – in sharp focus and places the audience fully immersed in it.
Grounding combines life writing with live writing – what Hashemi calls “embodied writing,” using Persian calligraphy only to break its traditional limits. Rather than transcribing sacred text or classical poetry (formal writing by men and about men) on intimate-sized gilded manuscript paper to be owned, here Hashemi writes and records in public – on her hands and knees and marking her own reactions in red ink thus making the labour and our witnessing of it inseparable from the artwork – on massive scrolls and in colloquial language, a woman’s highly intimate stories, what remains absented from formal discourse. The artist’s original statement reads:
“The narrative has been emerging through conversations between us about how being women has affected our lives . . . Writing the self in a public space is an act of liberation when it reveals what we are trained, co-opted, forced, or acculturated to hide. In talking and then writing about intimately personal and sometimes traumatic experiences, Zahra and I have had to overcome many inhibitions. We entered each other’s lives as witness. Therefore, the process has been not only revealing but healing.”
Grounding addresses the politics of gender in contemporary Iran and beyond:
“This piece started with the dream of a space where writing could fully intertwine with embodied gestures and performative expression to explore the potentials of written word in creating visual-emotional landscapes. While I was dreaming, voices and images from the outside world infiltrated in my dreamscape: There is the man who is now president saying “grab [women] by the pussy” and the over-exposed image of an imported made-up doll standing beside him. There is the campus rapist walking free, and the radio host acquitted of sexual assault. There were Pussy Riot in Russia, masses of women in rallies against rape in India, and Women’s March on Washington. There, is the Islamic State, and here, in the “West,” and around the globe is the state of poverty that increasing numbers of women are pushed into, courtesy of neo-liberalism and politics of austerity.”
Grounding was selected as the monographic exhibition of the year in 2017 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. The jury cited the work for “representations of freedom and gender that transgress geographical, political, and cultural boundaries.” It was originally created at Carlton University Art Gallery as part of Open Space Lab, curated by Anna Khimasia.
This installation at the artLAB includes the original scrolls written in 2017. The video combines the footage shot on days 1 and 2 of the livestreamed performance (the first 6 scrolls), played here at 2-20x normal speed.
Exhibition text by Mina Rastgu.
Read the review: “Grounding: States of Gender”: Persian calligraphy documents memoir of womanhood in Iran. Written by Incé Husain. Antler River Media Co-op
With generous support from: Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations, Department of Languages and Cultures, Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies.
artLAB Gallery
JL Visual Arts Centre
Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
© 2026; Department of Visual Arts; Western University