The artist presents the exhibition Yours to Discover at the Pierre-François Ouellette Contemporary Art Gallery. In this exhibition, whose title borrows the slogan from Ontario’s license plates, Naqvi looks at photos that her immigrant parents took in symbolically significant places.
What are the ideals embodied in these tourist places places your parents visited in the 1980s?
In this series, I interrogated photos taken in three sites. At the CN Tower, my family learned that Canada was advancing economically and providing new opportunities for immigrants. At Niagara Falls, they were taught the idea that the landscape can be “indomitable” and majestic. At Cullen Gardens and Miniature Village in Whitby, they learned what Canadian communities are supposed to be like.
Why did your parents love these places so much?
My father likes to say that he likes to live in each country “as if he were a tourist”. My parents always like to explore and discover new things in the areas where they live. It is my own perception as an adult that is more critical… I try to question what we are “supposed” to learn from these sites. Who chooses what an important site is and what questions are we not supposed to ask about them?
Why do you give so much space to toys and board games in your images?
Board games, like tourist sites, embody ideologies that seem innocent, often aimed at children, but have deep political significance. Monopoly deals with the concept of ownership and capitalization on large portions of land. The game [Les colons de] Catan is all about traveling to a new land and exploiting the available resources. Jenga is all about removing the right pieces to reach its highest potential. These strategies are the same ones that immigrants and my own family put in place when coming to Canada to find economic stability.
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