Community Journalism Across Generations Series 6 - Shahrzad Arshadi.

 

 If a picture speaks a thousand words then a news story can be greatly improved with a good photograph. Shahrzad Arshadi will be sharing her photographs and with them many stories.  Her photographs and films expose another side of women and shine a light on the people at the heart of political and cultural movements. Shahrzad uses her camera as a tool to build social awareness and to help inform local communities and the international world of various movements that are lesser known in mainstream media.

Shahrzad will be presenting her photography projects based in Montreal and will speak on both the practical and creative process that goes into the projects. She will also discuss and offer insight on some of the challenges and advantages of working independently.

Shahrzad is a human rights activist and Montreal based Canadian/Iranian artist. She arrived in Canada as a political refugee in 1983. In the past nineteen years, Shahrzad has ventured into different fields of photography, painting, video and sound. Much of her work focuses on issues of culture and human rights and explores the themes of memory. Her work has been exhibited in various locations across North America and Europe

Some of the photographs and stories Shahrzad will be sharing are from her previous works:

Squares in the Pavement :  A series of 52 shots taken throughout the year from of the Israeli conciliate  in Montreal.

A Memory from the mountains of Kurdistan: A story about secular and socialist women of the Islamic world, their ideals, activism, and visions for a different world. It focuses on a group of women organized in “Komalah”, the Kurdistan Organization of the Communist Party of Iran, who live with their male comrades in a mountain camp.  In a society where state and family violence against women is endemic, they are engaged in political and military training, writing, reading, broadcasting, dancing, and singing in order to make their voice heard against any kind of fundamentalists and imperialists’ power.  Most of these women have left their home and joined “Komalah” due to the extreme oppression they have been subjected to in their family and/or by the government