Matilda Aslizadeh

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Matilda Aslizadeh (born 1976) is an Iranian-born Canadian visual artist and educator based in Vancouver. She moved from Iran to Greece after the 1979 revolution and later settled in Vancouver. She earned a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Her work uses video, photography, and installation to challenge traditional storytelling and to explore how media history can cross cultural boundaries in a fast-changing world.

In a dark wood (2009) is a two-channel video that shows an animated roulette spin of British Columbia trees arranged like Greek columns. It blends archival footage from British Columbia’s history with imagery of different cultures, reflecting the turmoil of her youth.

Moly and Kassandra (2018) was shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of the 2020 Capture Photography Festival. It features three female performers in front of open-pit mines, like an amphitheater. The piece links abstract economic ideas to mining work, weaving charts and monumental excavations with scenes of divination. It references 1979 fashion/history to comment on the shift from Keynesian to neoliberal economics and the effects of late capitalism. Helena Wadsley noted that the work can feel connected to the emptiness seen during the COVID era, in the 2020 presentation.

Awards and collective work:

In 2023, Aslizadeh was named Griffin Art Projects’ North Shore Studio Art Residency Award winner.

She is a founding member of Art Mamas, a Vancouver artist collective of nine mothers at different career stages. Since 2016, Art Mamas supports artist caregivers and examines how motherhood and caregiving fit into the art world. The group ran a 2021 residency at Access Gallery, turning the space into a laboratory with other mothers and parents. It has organized conversations and screenings with artists such as Margaret Dragu, Jin-me Yoon, and Elizabeth MacKenzie. In 2023, Art Mamas published art/mamas: Intermedial Conversations on Art, Motherhood and Caregiving.