01 - Main Space

Love Behind the Lens / Group Exhibition

09.08.2026 - 11.04.2026

Opening reception 09.10.2026

Exhibition Statement

Love Behind the Lens was conceived as a project meant to create a space of emotional freedom amidst increasingly pressurized creation. Responding to expectations placed on Artists and Individuals of Colour to represent entire cultures through the depiction of their pain, this project seeks to introduce some balance to the narratives surrounding racialized life by placing focus on joy and belonging. Participants were each given a disposable camera with the intention that they capture scenes from their everyday life that evoke happiness. 

Special thanks to artists Maria Christie Angelika Buenaventura, Jay Jama, Angelyn Emeanuo, Allam El-Dib, Behina Tabatabaei, MelVee X, Thea Galang, Efosa Afe, and presenter Ose Irete. This project belongs to you.

Read the artists’ statements here:

Love Behind the Lens Artist Statements — Marion Nicoll Gallery

02 - LRT Space

The Long Aftermath / Noor K

11.02.2026 - 12.17.2026

Reception Nov 26, 6-8PM

Exhibition Statement

The Long Aftermath brings together three embroidered photographic works that examine how Iraq has been represented and remembered through images of war. The works follow a loose chronology, beginning with the U.S.-led invasion and airstrikes of 2003 in Baghdad and moving through subsequent violence in Fallujah and the destruction of Mosul. Together, the photographs trace a prolonged history whose effects extend beyond individual moments of violence, continuing through landscapes, communities, cultural memory, and the ways these places are represented.

Each work begins with a published photograph documenting a location in Iraq affected by conflict. The first draws from photographs of Baghdad during the opening airstrikes of the 2003 invasion. The second turns to Fallujah in 2004, during the military operations and insurgent violence that severely affected the city. The third depicts the Old City of Mosul in 2017, after years of instability, including ISIL's occupation of the city and the destruction that followed. Seen together, these photographs consider the accumulation of events that continued to shape Iraq in the years following the invasion.

The photographs are transformed through hand embroidery using motifs informed by Iraqi rug-making and wood-carving traditions. Rather than reproducing a specific pattern or presenting one tradition as representative of Iraq as a whole, the designs draw from a range of Iraqi decorative forms and are developed through the artist’s own process of drawing, combining, and stitching. The resulting motifs are not intended as exact reproductions of any particular traditional design, but as an interpretation of the forms and patterns that informed the work. Bringing together references from different sources reflects the diversity of Iraq’s regional and cultural traditions, without reducing them to a single visual identity.

The act of embroidery is central to the way the photographs are transformed. Each image is pierced and stitched by hand, requiring repeated handling throughout the making process. The photograph becomes more than a record of a particular moment; its surface is physically altered through hours of slow, repetitive work. The thread draws attention to the image while also obscuring parts of it, creating a shifting relationship between what is immediately visible and what lies underneath. The photographs retain their original evidence of destruction, but are interrupted by a process of making associated with care, craft, and touch.

The contrast between the photographs and the embroidered motifs brings together two histories that might otherwise be encountered separately. The photographs depict places through moments of violence and destruction, while the embroidery introduces forms connected to Iraqi craft and cultural traditions. Iraq’s recent history has been marked by repeated periods of war, occupation, displacement, and political instability. The effects of these events extend beyond physical destruction, affecting communities, homes, cultural heritage, and the transmission of knowledge and traditions across generations. By bringing these elements together on the same surfaces, the works place images of destruction alongside the cultural histories of the places they depict.

The Long Aftermath is ultimately concerned with the relationship between what is documented and what is remembered. The photographs preserve particular moments within Iraq’s history of conflict, while the embroidered surfaces introduce cultural forms connected to craft, memory, and inheritance. Together, the works consider how prolonged conflict can affect not only places and communities, but also the ways cultural knowledge and traditions are passed between generations. The embroidery does not replace or conceal the destruction in the photographs; instead, both remain visible alongside one another, allowing the work to consider what can be lost, what can be remembered, and what can continue to be carried forward through making.

Artist Statement

As an Iraqi Turkmen and first-generation Canadian, Noor K’s practice explores the relationship between Middle Eastern and Western visual culture through sculpture, installation, textile, and image-based work. Drawing from her cultural background and Middle Eastern visual traditions, she combines traditional patterns and materials with contemporary aesthetics. Her work reflects on identity, memory, displacement, and the experience of growing up between cultures.

Instagram: @4vrgrl