Ammarah Syed created Grounding and Activating, luminous murals of collaged photography and calligraphy, placed between bents under the Gardiner Expressway at The Bentway. These bold works offered foundational healing to movement makers, with motivational words and links to action for those interested in making change. Syed’s work was exhibited in the TTC January-February 2021, as part of Vibe Arts’ Desire Lines.
Ammarah (aka Ammarican) is an interdisciplinary artist interested in documenting how modern day discourses such as capitalism, colonialism, and various power dynamics have developed to inform mental health, identity and sexuality. Ammarican explores how words influence emotion, culture and politics. AmmariCan’t Even, Ammarah’s performance alter-ego, seeks to deconstruct and explore the little boxes our society and our minds like to put us in. They aspire to use the arts as a means to transform oppression into change.
Grounding and Activating is Ammarah’s title for two large scale photo + text collages, mounted on a mobile wall in the middle of the skate path at The Bentway. Grounding was made with intention to draw the viewer in, even for just a moment, to ground themselves in words and images that offer a sense of healing and wellness during these challenging times. This was heightened by the symmetry of the grounding statements, written in calligraphy in black ink on white, as well as the attention to bursts of colour, leading the eyes through images of nature, sunsets and sunrises, in vivid nurturing shades.
Activating features a photo archive of Ammarah’s past and current involvement with activism and social movements, creating a contrasting energy to catalyze learning and motivation, asking the viewer to get involved. The piece offers direct links and connections to action, inviting viewers to realize their role in partnering to make change. The calligraphy uses multicoloured inks against images that, like building blocks, suggest activism that comes from the ground up and builds upon itself. Both pieces are energizing in different ways, highlighted by Ammarah’s attention to light, shadow and movement.
These spell-binding collages were embellished with calligraphy post production, threading the pieces together. Discussing this installation, Ammarah drew on the geometric lines and structural bents of the underbelly of the Gardiner expressway, offering photo story underneath this giant structure that invites you to come close, and move into, its many stories that hold up critical social movement-making.
