ARE WE T[HERE] YET?

ARE WE T[HERE] YET?  asks whether stories can ever truly be finished, or if they are always in a process of retelling, reinventing, and reinterpretation. This exhibition doesn’t ask the viewer to identify what is “real,” but instead invites reflection: How does meaning form? Is it in the object? The touch? The story? Or simply the gaze?

Imagine a love story told a hundred years ago, in a land far from here, within a culture unfamiliar to your own. That story inspires the creation of a handmade bowl, a carved ornament, a painted plate, or perhaps a ceramic bird. Over time, the story fades, but the object remains. Or maybe just part of the lone bird survives the shard with a painted flower. 

That fragment travels. It is copied, collected, and reimagined. It enters new hands and new places, adopted by other cultures who reinterpret its form for beauty, for curiosity, or for commerce. Its meaning drifts. Eventually, its origin may become unclear or even forgotten. We see this in blue-and-white ceramics replicated across centuries, or floral motifs that pass between continents, shifting in meaning as they move.

Soheila Esfahani’s work explores this transformation. Being there and here.
ARE WE T[HERE] YET?   brings together ceramic birds, painted plates, and sculptural elements some handmade, others factory-produced or collected over time. These objects occupy a space between authenticity and adaptation, challenging our impulse to trace things back to a singular, fixed origin.

As an Iranian Canadian artist based in Waterloo, Ontario, Esfahani investigates how cultural forms change through translation, migration, and reproduction. Her practice draws on both handmade and mass-produced objects, placing them in conversation to examine how meaning is shaped and reshaped.

Esfahani’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto), the Canadian Cultural Centre (Paris), and the Canadian Museum of Immigration (Halifax), and is held in collections such as the Canada Council Art Bank. She currently teaches at Western University and is a member of Toronto’s Red Head Gallery.

About the Artist: Soheila Esfahani

Soheila Esfahani grew up in Tehran, Iran, and moved to Canada in 1992. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from University of Waterloo and a Master of Fine Arts from Western University. Esfahani is an award-winning visual artist and recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund.

She is a recipient of 2016 Waterloo Region Arts Awards and was nominated for the Jameel Prize at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, UK in 2015. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally including at the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto, ON), Canadian Cultural Centre Paris (France), Surrey Art Gallery (Surrey, BC), Canadian Museum of Immigration (Halifax, NS) among others, and has been collected by various public and private institutions including the Canada Council’s Art Bank.

Her coin design for the Royal Canadian Mint’s Celebrating Canada’s Diversity Collection was released in limited mintage gold and silver coins in 2024. She is an Assistant Professor at Western University in London, Ontario and is a member of the Red Head Gallery in Toronto.

About the Curator: Niku Koochak

Niku Koochak is a contemporary artist holding an MFA /Visual Arts from the University of Windsor and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Tehran /Faculty of Fine Arts. Her artistic research centers on identity formation and the internal conflicts that arise when navigating different social environments. Through her work, she explores the tension between adapting to diverse societal norms and the contradictions faced as a global citizen. Niku’s practice spans abstract painting and performance art, where she employs unconventional tools like elastic bands and slingshots to create her artworks. She is currently the TD Curatorial Fellow at Art Windsor-Essex.