Artist

Gita Hashemi

Artist, curator, writer and educator, Gita Hashemi engages in a diverse range of creative/critical strategies including media and object production, installation, performance, intervention and publishing. She has worked extensively in collaborative, networked and participatory contexts using different media including digital text, still and moving image, sound and code. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, Australia, Germany, Palestine, Argentina, Thailand, Italy, Poland, Spain and Armenia. In 2009, she was included in “Histoires a l’ere numerique” exhibition at Plug-in in Basel, Switzerland, and presented at the theoretical forum of the 10th International Art Biennial in Havana. Several of her netart pieces have been included in Java Museum’s exhibitions, and she participated as artist and curator at InteractivA 2003, 2005 and 2007.

She has received, among other awards and honours, the 2001 Independent Projects Award at Baddeck International New Media Festival for CD-R “Of Shifting Shadows: returning to the 1979 Iranian Revolution through an exilic journey in memory and history” which was also a highlight of the 2001 SIGGRAPH and included in its traveling exhibit; the 2002 Toronto Community Foundation award for the interactive sound installation “A War Primer” (part of The Word Room installation with Post-Exile); and the Iowa Ad Federation’s Gold Award for Locating Afghanistan (with Babak Salari, Haleh Niazmand and Daniel Ellis).

Hashemi was born in Iran where she began her training in School of Fine Arts in Tehran University and the Iranian Association of Calligraphers. After leaving Iran in 1984, she continued her studies at CSUN in Los Angeles. She moved to Canada in 1991, where she obtained an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University in Toronto.

Hashemi taught time-based art and new media at York University for a decade. She has also taught senior seminars in new media at University of Toronto and Ryerson University, and multimedia authoring and project planning at Centenial College. She has served on many art juries, boards and committees in Canada. She is currently a contributing editor to Fuse Magazine where she served on the editorial committee for many years.

Artist Code: 237

Videography

Of Shifting Shadows

2000, colour, English