Shaheer Zazai and Whyishnave Suthagar

This exhibition brings together Toronto-based Afghan Canadian artist Shaheer Zazai and Mississauga-based Tamil-Canadian artist Whyishnave Suthagar. Both artists have created new bodies of work that engage with elements from their respective cultural heritage to create immersive, contemplative environments.

Shaheer Zazai’s installation, A Petal for a Petal, A Deed for a Deed—The Garden We Could Have Been, envisions a world where creation and destruction coexist. Expanding his ongoing exploration of the intersection between digital language and textile traditions, Zazai draws from the history of floral motifs in Afghan carpets and reimagines them at a monumental scale, through towering fabric scrolls and an illuminated ceiling mosaic. These darkly radiant blooms are not ornamental, but act as silent witnesses, emerging from the remains of a world burned by human neglect. Here, a garden of paradise becomes a garden of consequence, as floral sentinels rise in judgement of the destruction humans create and the warnings left unheard.

Whyishnave Suthagar’s project நினைவு | Ninaivu—What We Remember, What We Release turns toward intergenerational healing within the Eelam Tamil diaspora. At its centre glows a Kolam-inspired mandala, which draws upon traditional Tamil artistic motifs. A series of collages reference the visual history of the Sri Lankan civil war, and illuminated texts feature letters exchanged between Tamil Canadian family members. These works speak to the shared but differently experienced journey of diaspora: what is inherited, what is grieved, and what is cherished. At the heart of the space, visitors are invited to write letters of their own, becoming part of an intergenerational conversation that honours memory and fosters healing.

Curated by Shannon Anderson, AGM Senior Curator