RIAZ MEHMOOD

Riaz Mehmood hopes to create an audio book installation that gives a sense of how a country such as Canada can experience and preserve a place like Baghdad, which seems to only exist in the imaginations of Canadians.  Based on Scheherazade’s tales in 1001 Nights, he will produce audio pieces that will narrate 1001 photographs of fictitious and historical images of Baghdad.  Using a number of stories and images he will examine linear and non linear narrative assumptions associated with these images.  By walking and meeting with other artists, he would like to gain their insights and use this research to explore how truths can be constructed by using overlooked histories.  The final presentation will be composed of a compilation of images in the form of a book and a second accompanying element of audio stories.

Artist biography: Riaz Mehmood is an experimental video artist originally from Pakistan.  He graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design and was awarded the M. Joan Chalmers Scholarship and the Birks Medal and Award in 2005.  He was recently involved in a group performance led by Diane Borsato for the Art Gallery of York University in Toronto titled Snowbank in 2007.  Mr. Mehmood’s piece Baghdad 101 was viewed at the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest in 2007 and his other work has been screened at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Regent Park Film Festival and during 401 Artsweek.  He examines the social and political transformations in Pakistan, his personal migration to Canada and the South Asian dispersion in Canada.  Currently, he resides in Toronto working as a web designer.