MFA exhibition at the Nickle Gallery: The blur of two worlds concurrently
By Abbas Hussain, October 28 2025—
The Nickle Gallery has showcased the work of several graduates of the MFA program at the University of Calgary in the Nickle Gallery. Out of the many artists displayed, the one that stood out to me was the art of Yalda Jahan Panah and Yekta Tarki. Both artists are from Iran but they deviate in the medium of choice with the former being a photographer whose art focuses on exploring her roots with a focus on the relationship between people and place while the later being a painter with a focus on the intersection between art and science.
Her collection, Beyond the Boundaries of the Place is a collection focused on her childhood in Iran and while some of those places no longer exist she explores how they continue to stay with her to this day. Her pieces show how those past memories affect how you look at the world now, almost as if those senses have been transplanted and placed into the current now. Her art attempts to explore the complex relationships between people, memory and place.
A lot of her pieces capture this sentiment, whether it’s a photo of her family in the tough Iranian desert, backdropped by a beautiful palace or a simple photo with a red Canada post box beside an old street sign with Farsi text written on it.
The piece that stands out the most is called Beyond the Boundaries of Place, which is a piece that shows almost two worlds applied to one another. Her new home, Calgary, is in the foreground, which signifies the new and change while in the background, you can see Tehran, her old home. It so elegantly displays how memories of the old don’t go away, but instead, they fuse together with the new. That is to say, almost building a complete picture, where old and new can co-exist peacefully. Not in conflict, but in love.
Panah’s work turns out to be a creative yet stunning visual. Her choice to place two photographs on top of each other with the help of transparent film and LEDs shows her creative ingenuity and her artistic vision. It poetically displays old and new, past and now, yesterday and today.
Yekta Tarki’s projection, Visualising the Pyrocene: The Fort McMurray Project, is another collection that stood out to me. It’s a piece about the fires that took place at Fort McMurray in 2024 and the destruction that they caused.
There are three pieces of artwork that make up this project. The first one shows the land during winter, which depicts the cold and desolate nature of the land. The second piece is bright red depicting a scene during the fire, showcasing how terrifying and devastating the impact of the fire was on Fort MacMurray. Finally, but not least, the last piece depicts the devastating impact of the fire, with the result of grey clouds and largely burned-out hills and trees. These pieces of artwork really capture the devastating impact of fires on the natural habitat, which has been accelerated to dangerous levels due to, among other causes, climate change.
More about the MFA Exhibition can be found at the Nickle Gallery website. The Nickle Gallery currently has the Munnings — The War Years and Ecologies — Eveline Kolijn on display until Dec. 6.