AFK | Performances

CodeNames II by Maryam Tafakory

Maryam Tafakory

Curated by: Jaclyn Quaresma

Close-up of a hand with pained nails gently caressing the edge of a wall. The image is tined in saturated red and yellow color.

CodeNames II

Maryam Tafakory

Iran | 2024 | Performance | English

Location

Innis Town Hall

2 Sussex Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5

Sidewalk-level entrance, elevator and ramp available, door width 32 inches, no automatic doors. No accessible parking on-site. Four wheelchair accessible seats in the cinema. 15 step-free seats in row 9. Accessible gender-neutral washroom located on the 2nd and 3rd floor.

For a map of Innis Town Hall, click here

COVID-19 Policy

Images Festival is committed to providing an accessible festival and continues to work to reduce barriers to participation at our events. This year, we are implementing a COVID-19 policy to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for all, and to prioritize the participation of people who are disability-identified, immunocompromised, or part of an otherwise vulnerable group.

The following guidelines will be in place: Self-Assessment: We ask that staff and participants screen themselves for COVID-19 before visiting the exhibition.

Due to extenuating circumstance, the 7pm performance of Codenames II has been cancelled.

If you purchased a ticket, we are happy to refund or exchange them for a different screening.

Please email frontofhouse@imagesfestival.com to receive a refund or a replacement ticket.

In CodeNames II, Maryam Tafakory revisits films made in Iran after 1979 through digital projection, live performance, and an archival search for the unspoken that is speaking. It is a search for forgotten names, for forbidden bodies, for women’s disappearances both on and off the screen. Working between cinema and live performance, Maryam makes textual and filmic collages that stitch together poetry, documentary, and archival material. These works often attempt to dissect veiled acts of erasure: of bodies, intimacies, and histories.

Maryam will be narrating live; no two performances of this work are the same, and as recording is not permitted, this piece can only be experienced once, in person. This is Maryam's first performance in so-called Canada.

Maryam Tafakory

Maryam Tafakory, born in Shiraz, Iran, works with film and performance. Screenings of her work include MoMA, Locarno, IFFR and ICA, amongst others. Her works won awards such as the Best Experimental Short at 70th Melbourne International Film Festival, Gold Hugo Award at 58th Chicago International Festival, Tiger Short Award at 51st IFFR Rotterdam and Barbara Hammer Feminist Award at 60th AAFF.

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all.

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us.

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.