Opening reception: June 4, 6–8PM
In person at InterAccess (32 Lisgar St, Toronto ON)
FREE

This interdisciplinary project explores how objects, both found and personal, serve as silent witnesses to human existence, examining their intersections with material culture, perception, time, and diasporic identity. Shaped by the perspectives of a researcher-practitioner and an artist, the project unfolds as a collaborative exchange of ideas, centered on objects as carriers of memory, presence, and transformation.

Challenging notions of stillness, the collaborators trace the shifting roles of objects in cultural displacement, storytelling, and human interaction. Rooted in personal and collective relationships with materiality, they engage in a process-based dialogue responding to and reshaping each other’s selections. Through diverse mediums, including sculpture with found objects, painted installations with digital projections, and photography, the work blurs the boundaries between research and artistic practice. It interrogates materiality as both a vessel of memory and a mutable entity, subject to transformation.

The cyclical dialogue invites audiences to consider how objects embody traces of existence, forging connections between the personal, collective, and historical. Drawing on the concept of evocative objects as research artifacts, the artists examine the intersection of material culture and absence in contemporary diasporic art. The final works, shaped by this ongoing exchange, encourage viewers to see objects not as static entities but as sites of presence, interaction, and transformation. Overall, the project expands the discourse on presence, absence, and the resonances embedded within everyday objects—revealing their capacity to shape, and be shaped by human experience.

This project is presented as part of IA Gateway. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Anam Liaqat is a Pakistani-Canadian interdisciplinary visual artist whose work explores object-hood, visual perception, stillness, and time in contemporary art. She expands painting through installation, photography, digital animation, projection, and sound, bridging traditional and contemporary techniques to create immersive experiences in galleries and public spaces. Exhibiting nationally and internationally, she redefines the relationship between image, object, and viewer, challenging notions of still life. Her practice, rooted in diaspora and cultural identity, reflects on memories and relationships with objects of personal and collective significance. She holds an MFA from OCAD University (2022) and co-founded Articulate Studios, an international artist residency encouraging cross-cultural collaboration. 

Faseeh Saleem is a Pakistani-Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the rigor of artistic design research, offering insightful and alternative conceptions of the body within art and design. He completed his doctoral studies at the Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, Sweden, 2024. Faseeh is the co-founder of DRAFTS, an artistic research project initiated in 2021 that highlights the dynamic processes of thinking, ideation, and speculation through design artifacts. DRAFTS showcases diverse interpretations of what a research artifact is—or could be. He is also a co-founder and collaborator of Somatic Provocations – Fashioning a Dialogue, a platform that brings together academics, researchers, and practitioners to explore, and expand ideas in fashion and textiles. His works have been exhibited in renowned galleries and museums worldwide. 

ABOUT IA GATEWAY

The InterAccess Gateway (IA Gateway) program facilitates low-barrier, no-cost access to gallery space for new media artists within our community. “Gateway” is an entry point; the term refers to network gateways, telecommunication devices that allow for the flow and translation of data between separate networks – an apt metaphor for the responsibility of organizations to provide resources and support to the artists in their community. IA Gateway was first held in 2024.