What if, instead of scrolling through social media, a person resolved to begin each day with a creative act? That is what Shaheer Zazai did in 2013, when he purposefully opened Microsoft Word to make a design using 2013 characters. What began as a creative distraction from social media would lead Zazai into a new form of art production that he never intended to pursue.

This exhibition includes Zazai’s digital prints, Jacquard tapestries, handwoven carpets and videos, all translated from images painstakingly created in Microsoft Word.  As an Afghan-Canadian artist, Shaheer Zazai’s work integrates the rich history of Afghan carpet production with contemporary media and graphic languages to open a dialogue between Eastern and Western traditions and between the technologies of the past and present.

Curated by Jeffrey Nye