Ghazaleh Avarzamani: Of Manual

In her layered, multidisciplinary works, Iranian-Canadian artist Ghazaleh Avarzamani examines familiar objects like board games, playgrounds, manuals, and nursery rhymes to uncover the invisible ways in which power dynamics are learned and perpetuated. For Contemporary Calgary’s façade, Avarzamani creates a panoramic image assembling a multitude of tokens and pawns into a cumulative manual where fragments of board-game logic form a single speculative landscape. Borrowing from the visual language of classic strategy games, the composition incorporates heraldic symbols that evoke national borders, territorial identity, and systems of authority. The board becomes a model of society: a controlled arena where movement is regulated, identities are assigned, and outcomes are shaped by rules that often remain hidden to the player. Viewers are invited to consider the implications of selecting pieces and entering the game, confronting through play the fraught idea of land as possession to be disputed, organised, and governed. The replicated icons and grids suggest methods of standardisation and obedience, while emblems of warfare, victory, and prestige point to the rewards attached to participation. Merging playful aesthetics with underlining tenors of control, Of Manual reflects on the subtle ways in which entertainment, competition, and territorial governance intersect, lifting the curtain to open possibilities for resistance and undoing.