Variations on a Garden

Abbas Akhavan, curtain call, variations on a folly, 2021/2023, barley straw, subsoil, lightweight leca, sharp sand, puddle clay, wood, chromakey green paint, pink noise, 390 x 650 x 1230 cm. Photo: David Stjernholm; courtesy of the artist.

Join visual artist Abbas Akhavan as he discusses some of his most significant works to date, particularly those focused on animals, ruins, and gardens. Akhavan's practice ranges across site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture, and performance. The direction of his research has been deeply influenced by the specificity of the sites in which he works, including the architectures that house them, the economies that surround them, and the individuals that frequent them. The concept of the garden—and by extension, the spaces and species just outside the home, such as the backyard, public parks, and other domesticated landscapes—have been foundational components in his work. In recent large-scale installations, Akhavan recreates cultural sites affected by international conflicts, attending to the multivalent ways in which ongoing geopolitics fight for control of historical narratives. Through his work, Akhavan engages with formal, material, and social legacies that shape the boundaries between public and private, domesticated and wild, hostile and hospitable.

This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, UBC; and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC.

Abbas Akhavan: One Hundred Years will be on display at the Belkin Art Gallery from 5 September - 7 December, 2025. 

Abbas Akhavan’s (b. 1977, Tehran, Iran; lives/works: Montreal and Berlin) received an MFA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2006), and a BFA from Concordia University, Montréal (2004). Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include La Biennale di Venezia, Canada Pavilion (2026); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2026); Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2025); Bangkok Kunsthalle (2025); Copenhagen Contemporary and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (2023). He is the recipient of the Fellbach Triennial Award (2017); Sobey Art Award (2015); Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014); and the Berliner Kunstpreis (2012).