The Founders Gallery is a strange entity hidden within the labyrinthine Military Museums. I remember elementary school class trips to the latter, trying to correctly assemble a naval officer’s uniform and climbing over the staid tanks in the gallery’s courtyard. Fighting was synonymous with playing then, but now, a decided pacifist without even a stomach for Call of Duty video games, I resent almost everything the Military Museums stands for. Memorialism seems inseparable from monumentalism, and the Museums’ displays risk celebrating the bravado and patriotism that are inherent catalysts to military conflict. I want to see shame and regret, but it is not to be found here. 
Abbas Kowsari, Shade of Earth
Burnt Generation is an exhibition of contemporary Iranian photography by artists who comprised the eponymous generation – those who lived through the Iran/Iraq war and the 1979 Revolution. Curator Fariba Farshad stated upfront in her remarks at the opening reception that simply “being Iranian did not give [her] permission to curate an Iranian exhibition.” This was a poignant statement given the nearby Oh, Canada exhibition whose curator cannot claim Canadian citizenship on her list of qualifications. As Farshad expounded upon her recent research and artistic desires, I found myself at the back of the crowd, unselfconsciously nodding along to her elucidations. Despite the exhibition’s positioning, the show does not claim to be a survey nor does it pretend to speak on anyone’s behalf. It is the sharing of individuals united solely by their nationality, birth years, and choice of medium. The work is accordingly disparate in the best of ways.
Collaborators Ali Nadjian and Ramyar Manouchehrzadeh’s photos bear a title staggering in its simplicity: We live in a paradoxical society. Their staged images are seemingly unordinary pictures of domestic life, but we are provoked to stare, wrestling with stereotypes and expectations as the title forces one to try to distinguish Persian teapots and religious artefacts from Ikea furnishings. Gender roles are questioned and character motivations left unclear.
Shadi Ghardirian’s Nil, Nil series creates still-lives wherein everyday life and war are enmeshed. Some of the images seem uninterrupted; the remnants of conflict are invisible amongst the trappings of banality, whereas others are so out of place as to seem obnoxious and heavy-handed. But this is Iran, the artist claims. Life does not always play nice for the poet-documentarian.
Look by Newsha Tavakolian is quieter. Her images are voyeuristic: a high-powered camera lens captures scenes through neighbouring apartment windows. Here, the melancholy of coming home from work or killing time before a date is forced, by context, into the frustration of living in a conflicted and paradoxical society. Long wars and sudden political shifts feed the silent discomfort of her unknowing subjects.
The mood of the exhibition is dour and necessarily reverent. A slight departure occurs in Abbas Kowsari's Shade of Earth, a photo that seems out of place by not depicting isolated or absent Iranians; instead it features a group of men and women amongst many bright red flags. The accompanying text reports that every year during the New Year (Norooz) holidays, thousands of Iranians undertake a pilgrimage to visit the fronts of the Iran/Iraq war. The trip is called Rahian-e Noor (the Caravan of Light). This image, of all the images here, draws the boldest line to the namesake of the Burnt Generation, directly documenting results of the social and political clashes that occurred during the artists’ respective childhoods. It does not re-enact or project, and this restraint emboldens the works around it, just as they inform and contextualize it.
University of Calgary Librarian and Vice-Provost Tom Hickerson closed the evening by asking what a contemporary art gallery can do within the breast of a military museum. He spoke about his and gallery curator Lindsay Sharman’s desire to direct attention to armed conflict and its effects worldwide, expanding the scope beyond the museum’s Canada-centric memorials. They want the gallery to exist as a place of learning and empathy. With poetry, the artists of Burnt Generation undo simplistic Western perceptions of contemporary Iranian culture while celebrating individualism in the wake of such all-encompassing unrest. I left feeling both terrified and enamoured by the things we do to each other.
The Founders Gallery: http://www.themilitarymuseums.ca/gallery-founders
Burnt Generation continues until April 12.
Steven Cottingham is another artist. Based in Calgary, he studied in New York and has recently exhibited in Havana, Glasgow, Fredericton, and Vancouver. Currently he is writing, as so many have done before, a book about love and art. He can be followed on Twitter @artcriticsm.
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Burnt Generation at The Founders Gallery
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