Afshin Matlabi is a multidisciplinary artist. He holds a B.F.A. from U.B.C. Vancouver, a M.F.A. from Concordia U. Montreal, and a B.Eng. from Ryerson Poly. U. Toronto. He has presented his works across Canada in solo and group exhibitions and currently teaches at Vanier College and Concordia University in Montreal. He explores issues concerning gender and sexuality, crosscultural phenomena, and humor. He lives in Montreal.
His current work is a multidisciplinary project on leisure. Through painting and drawings, digital imaging, print media, animation, photography, and performances, he creates an environment where the world of leisure meets terrorism and disasters. Here is an excerpt from his artist statement:
« It was on a serene sunny morning that the shuttle Columbia headed for earth from its ten day mission in the orbit. Upon entry, in less than thirty seconds, it burst into flames and exploded into thousand pieces. On its burning path, it traversed across half of the United State disappearing slowly in the horizon. It seemed this mass of technology, carrier of all human aspirations, mockingly drew a fleeting white line onto our blue sky, scattering its precious fragments on the ever present leisurely grand American landscape.
As I sipped my freshly squeezed orange juice, I flipped the page of the Sandals resorts catalogue from which I was planning my next vacation. It is almost poetic, human technology failing yet again, human aspiration having once more to suffer a major set back, dreams breaking at a stand still, shock. Watching on my television screen I felt the horror and sadness, of the price we pay to fulfill our dreams. I felt I should have been use to the feeling of vulnerability and fear that comes with the need for escaping to a non-whatever-happening-place, by now. I know, I you we have developed a sensitivity, an immunity, for disasters amid all want for leisure. The same technology that carries us around fast and furious, can be the cause of our death and we deal with it. But that is the whole point, the experience of paradise within the knowledge of hell. It is an evolutionary attitude for itself, a culture, an industry, and I am its always participant and most frequent user, so the more media and advertisements showing me disasters the more my desire for leisure and paradise resorts. »
