Dot by dot like a baby gazelle, an exhibition presented at La Centrale galerie Powerhouse draws on tattoo cultures from Iran and the Maghreb to explore nation-building, gender, diaspora, and the future.

The title was inspired by the lyric “dot by dot like a baby gazelle grazing in the plain of the Olive River” by the poet and singer Aissa Djarmouni. The song, Ain El Karma connects the act of tattooing to the North African land which Djarmouni often wrote about. 

The artists use performance, film, sculpture, photography and geomency to document tattooing and its practice in Iran and Maghreb and their diasporas. 

“It’s about how tattooing is this process, that starts by puncturing the skin dot by dot,” said Mitra Fakhrashrafi, the curator of the event. “It’s still a popular poem, and it really speaks to the importance of tattooing. Something that has since been stigmatized in the Middle East and North Africa, but also has a long history of being alive and present in those cultures and traditions.”

Exploring Tattooing 

Mitra Fakhrashrafi is a multidisciplinary artist and curator who has worked with many Toronto and Montréal-based artists. Her exhibitions have featured work that answers questions on surveillance and gentrification as well as belonging and diaspora. She is a chair of Whippersnapper Gallery’s Board of Directors and was recently awarded the 2021 Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators. 

Fakhrashrafi’s family is from Iran. Her grandfather had tattoos all over his body and so they naturally became a normal part of her life. At the same time, Fakhrashrafi grew up Muslim and heard many people say that, according to Islam, the practice is not allowed. When she began this project in 2020, her research looked into how tattoos have a more fluid and ambiguous relationship to Islam.

Fakhrashrafi curated the exhibition using the work of artists Mélika Hashemi, Shirin Fahimi with Morehshin Allahyari, Iman Lahroussi and Nazlie Najafi.

Breaching Towards Other Futures

Fahimi and Allahyari’s work, Breaching Towards Other Futures, is at the entrance of the gallery. It features a video lecture as well as an installation for visitors to engage with. 

Fahimi is based in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario and Allahyari in Brooklyn, New York. Both artists are from Iran but met in Montréal. They began collaborating due to their shared interest in Islamic divination and Jinn. 

“They’re both interested in looking at those otherworldly beings and practices and using those to discuss issues of justice, moving past binary, moving past ideas of linear time and just thinking about this idea of other futures,” said Fakhrashrafi.​​

Fakhrashrafi explained that since 2016, Fahimi has been researching and practicing a type of geomency called Ilm Al-raml or “knowledge of the sands”.

The installation that she created includes sand and vinyl and plexiglass reproductions of sketches. The sketches are traditionally drawn in the sand to answer questions, open portals and to practice this form of divination.

“[It has] been looked down upon in a lot of ways because of this colonial rationalist gaze,” said Fakhrashrafi. “But before that, it was a very  normal part of society and it was even interwoven with aspects of science and law.”

 

Bubblegum, Birdsong and Tattooing

Mélika Hashemi’s work also delves into divination. Hashemi is a Kitchener-based artist who designed a series of temporary tattoos in a bubblegum machine. When visitors place their coin in the machine they’re invited to ask a question or set an intention. 

“It’s connected to Islamic divination, Persian fortune-telling specifically,” said Fakhrashrafi. “In Persian fortune-telling practices there are Fal-e Hafez. They’re these cards that you would ask a question or intention, and then you pick a card. That card is both random and it’s also predicted.”

 On the top of the bubblegum machine is the statue of a small budgie. Fakhrashrafi explained that a small bird would traditionally pull a card and give it to the person asking a question. What they receive is both random and predicted. 

The statue pairs beautifully with the sound of birdsong which can be heard throughout the room. The sound is from Nazlie Najafi’s work.

“[Najafi’s] contribution is this film and a sculpture,” said Fakhrashrafi. “The film is of her grandmother describing her grandfather’s tattoos, how he got them, why he got them and where he got them. She created an accompanying bust of a body and painted his tattoos onto that to recreate his body and the tattoos.”

Taking Inspiration From Family Archives

Artist Iman Lahroussi digs into her family’s archives for her installation. Lahroussi is currently an MA student at the University of Toronto and holds a BA in African Studies. She is situated between Toronto, Brussels and Tangiers. Her work features state portraits of her grandfather with her grandmother’s facial tattoos layered on the photographs.

“It’s toying with this idea that state portraiture is biometric technology. Before there were drones or any other forms of technology, the state photograph was its own form of technology where it takes an image and it turns it into information,” Fakhrashrafi.

The photo was also a way for Lahroussi to discuss the stigmatization of tattooing in the Maghreb. Her grandmother had facial tattoos which many viewed as a form of protection and warding off evil. However, she also faced stigma and considered having them removed. For the artist, layering the tattoos over the image of her grandfather was like reclaiming them. 

 “I just found it really interesting that multiple artists went to their family histories. Myself, Nazlie and Iman, all centred on grandfathers in the work,” she said. Shirin and Mélika both looked towards divination and fortune-telling. That’s where the call and the idea of tattooing brought them. It was to other oftentimes relegated practices like tattooing. And then the budgie was also a little cherry on top because it presented more of a cultural connotation. It existed across those works for that reason.”

More From La Centrale

La Centrale will display Dot by dot like a baby gazelle from March 3 to April 7, 2022. The gallery will also host several activities with the exhibition including: the event “From Mia Khalifa to Bousbir” with Nashwa Lina Khan, a conversation with Shirin Fahimi, an AR filter and an e-lecture with the artist Mélika Hashemi and a finissage.

Follow the Rabbit on Instagram and Facebook.