Present Elsewhere explores the fragile and shifting nature of memory when longing for home. Rooted in personal recollections of her grandparents’ house in Iran, Marzieh Miri turns to surrealist painting and Persian poetry for inspiration—particularly Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani’s poem Migration of the Violets, and carrying one’s homeland as "easily as violets in a box of soil”, where displacement and belonging are intimate yet collective experiences.
Through the emulsion lift process, Miri submerges photographs of her homeland in water and transfers them onto glass and paper. The resulting distortions mirror the ways memory bends, blurs and transforms over time, particularly within the psyche. These delicate images embody the impossibility of preserving the past intact, while affirming the resilience of memory to adapt and endure.
Miri invites viewers to encounter Present Elsewhere as both personal fragments and shared meditations on home, loss and the subconscious persistence of memory.
Marzieh Miri is an Iranian-Canadian multidisciplinary visual artist whose work explores place, memory and the subconscious through photographic media. Rooted in both research and personal experience, her practice focuses on experimental and alternative approaches to photography that examine the relationship between humans and their environments. Miri holds an MFA in Documentary Media from Toronto Metropolitan University and has exhibited in Iran, France, Austria and Canada, with project support from the Ontario Arts Council.
In addition to her artistic practice, Miri has worked as an architect, professor, writer and critic. She has contributed book chapters and articles to international journals and presented her research at academic conferences in Canada, England and Iran.
