10:15PM | Saturday, September 22 | VISUAL Q17

performance: nabil vega

Regina Public Library / Dunlop Art Gallery | 2311 12th Avenue

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Visiting Thahab

Nabil Vega - from Dhaka, Bangladesh - lives in Chicago, USA

Visiting Thahab explores the identity of a Muslim American femme in post 9/11 diaspora. She shrouds, moulds, apparates and dissolves into environments using her body. She inserts herself in spaces not made for her. She considers the contemporary and domestic, affected by notions of power and binaries. She creates her own space, a new space. She finds value in repetition and banality to drive a point. Her form functions. Her body gains force in movement. Tensions rise between her and her surroundings, raising the urgent question of what assimilation entails given the current political climate and the rise of Islamophobia in the United States. The persona, Thahab (body in gold), uses humour and banal actions to engage the viewer in communication and intimacy. For Performatorium, the artist will take the concept of these interactions and utilize them in specific spaces in Regina, cultivating actions informed by the environment.