Faculty of Art

Integrated Media

Kasra Goodarznezhad

NAAPOLI

Print / Installation

“This installation/book of poems and visual poetry was created as part of the Global Experience Project program. A group of selected artists from OCAD participated in this program designed to allow students to travel and learn under an artist mentor - Maria Thereza Alves . The program created opportunities to work with the artist throughout the semester and finally travel to that artist’s country of residence and complete a residency.As an Iranian with Iranian passport, I decided to make this book of poems in response to the restrictions on border mobility and the tedious administrative process of obtaining a visa to travel outside Canada for two weeks. I was the only one in the program of 9 students that needed to go through this to travel to Naples, Italy, where Alves resided.The poems in this book are a collection of my poems that reflect on systemic racism, border control, and displacement.This work was shown in Ada Slaight Gallery at OCADu from February 11-16, in an exhibition titled “gestures: life in the shadow of a volcano” curated by Chiedza Pasipanodya.”