ABOUT THE PROJECT
“Life Stories Quilt” is Z Gallery‘s multilingual podcast project with focus on social justice, feminist, political and human rights activists and artists life stories. A series of interviews with individuals from all walks of life whose passion and life focus is to bring positive changes into our world locally and internationally. Our goal is to create a colourful and multilayered “Sound Quilt” in order to reclaim our stories and our communities. Our wish is to reach different communities in our city, country and beyond in order to help build common knowledge and memories.
This ongoing podcast project has been created to be a platform for dozens of old and new interviews that we started gathering in past decades in Montreal – Canada, Middle-East (Kurdistan), Europe and America.
This project has been launched on February 20th, 2019 with hope that regularly we will add a new episode or new pieces to our colourful Quilt!
*Podcast episodes will be in Four different languages; English, French, Farsi, and Kurdish
Shahrzad Arshadi
a Montréal-based awards winning multidisciplinary artist, performer and social justice activist, came to Canada as a political refugee on December 24, 1983. In her artistic career Shahrzad has ventured into different fields of photography, documentary film, playwrite, sound creation and performance, enabling her focus on issues of memory, culture and human rights. Shahrzad is a core member of the Centre for Oral History & Digital Storytelling (COHDS) at Concordia University.
Founding member and artistic director of Z Gallery, a multidisciplinary and community based artists organization.
Awards:
1) “The Louise Garfield Award” 2020 presented by Nightwood Theater -Toronto / Ontario
2) “Little Prize” 2018, Center for Oral History and Digital Storytelling-Concordia University, For Community-Based Oral History Performance and Creation.
3) Women of Distinction 2017 the Inspiration Award (Women’s Y Foundation)
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4) Winner of the 19th International Galawej Cultural Festival 2015 /Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan for “Dancing For Change” a documentary film.
Nasim Mogharab (Sahra)
Nasim was born in Iran after the 1979 Revolution. While she was growing up, the new regime aimed at shaping young generation’s mind in line with the State’s narrative of history, justice, gender norms, etc. Poems, novels, and prison memoirs written by contemporary Iranian women helped her to navigate her path through repression.
She completed her graduate studies in History and Educational Technology in Canada. Her areas of interest include the cultural and social history of modern Iran, in general, and women’s history, in particular, and Human Rights education. She believes that life stories can be used as sources of inspiration and instruction.
