Hangama Amiri’s Portrait of a Woman with her Son at the Esker Foundation.
PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR
On a chilly afternoon in late January in Calgary, the Esker Foundation welcomed about 60 participants eager to hear from the Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri.
The art gallery in Calgary’s Inglewood neighbourhood hosted Amiri’s talk and tour event, which showcased the artist’s collection of intricately layered textile pieces.
The exhibition draws from Amiri’s diasporic experience, particularly the nine-year period when her family was split between different countries due to displacement.
During the talk, Amiri shared insights into her creative process, discussing how textiles, woven with memory and cultural significance, serve as material and metaphor in her work.
The exhibition’s title, PARTING, captures the emotional and physical distance caused by migration. Her artwork reflects the only way her parents were able to communicate while physically separated—photos and letters.
The exhibition inspires attendees to consider Amiri’s work not just as personal storytelling but as a broader reflection on the realities of migration.
A bright yellow sign marks the entrance to the Esker Foundation, a leading contemporary art gallery in Calgary’s Inglewood neighbourhood. The space is known for hosting free exhibitions and events, including Hangama Amiri’s Talk & Tour of her exhibition PARTING on Jan. 25. PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR Hangama Amiri reflects on her artistic process and inspiration during the Talk & Tour of her art exhibition PARTING at the Esker Foundation. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Amiri and her family fled the country in 1996 due to political instability, leading to nine years of separation from their father before they reunited in Canada. Her textile-based work reflects on themes of migration and familial bonds, drawing from her own diasporic experience. PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR Curator Elizabeth Diggon (left) looks on as Hangama Amiri (right) discusses the piece Portrait of a Woman with a Denim Jacket. The textile collage reimagines a photograph of Amiri’s mother in their Dushanbe apartment, incorporating details that evoke the Soviet-era aesthetics of their home. “Textiles hold a lot of smell. It’s a fragile material – it stretches, it rips, it carries memory,” she said, emphasizing the medium’s role in storytelling. PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR A close-up of Hangama Amiri’s Portrait of a Woman with a Denim Jacket showcasing her layering approach to fabric. Amiri carefully selects materials with personal and cultural significance, drawing from her memories and family history. This textile work includes various materials such as chiffon, faux leather, velvet, and cotton. PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIRHangama Amiri speaks to attendees, standing beside her textile work, Man with Vase of Tulips. Amiri shares how the piece represents her father’s time away from his loved ones while working in Norway, with the tulips symbolizing both his labour and the distance that separated their family. PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR Hangama Amiri speaks to a packed audience, with curator Elizabeth Diggon nearby. On the left is Amiri’s piece, New Year’s Eve, and on the right is her piece, Woman in the Park. Amiri’s layered fabrics, rich in colour and texture, serve as a visual archive of migration, loss, and resilience. PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR Hangama Amiri’s preparatory sketch for the piece Woman Before a Mirror, which was displayed as part of Amiri’s PARTING exhibition at the Esker Foundation. Exhibiting her sketches publicly for the first time, Amiri uses these drawings to map out textiles, colours, and composition before translating them into her fabric collages. “These drawings don’t exactly resemble what the fabrics are doing,” Amiri said. “As soon as I pick up a colour close to a drawing, but not so much, it’s a completely different texture – it creates its own story or narrative.” PHOTO: JULIANNA ADAIR
