OCAD U student brings deaf perspectives to Toronto Biennial of Art

For OCAD University MFA student Maryam Hafizirad, art is more than a form of expression. It is a way to make visible experiences, cultures and perspectives that are too often overlooked.

Hafizirad is an international award-winning multidisciplinary Deaf Canadian Persian visual artist, curator, teacher, mentor and advocate for Deaf artists who is bringing that perspective to one of Canada’s major contemporary art events through a placement with the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA).

She is completing her MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice at OCAD U and is supporting TBA’s public and learning programs through Deaf View Image Art (De’VIA), Deaf culture, storytelling and accessibility.

This opportunity is part of an experiential learning placement facilitated by the University’s RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers (CEAD), which supports the early career advancement of OCAD U students and recent alums through career development, experiential learning and creative entrepreneurship.

Hafizirad’s placement is connected to TBA 2026’s theme, Things Fall Apart, which explores ideas of rupture, change and resistance. The Biennial’s mission is to make contemporary art accessible to everyone, and it takes place from Sept. 26 to Dec. 20, 2026. 

The 12-week event is held every two years and presents a large number of commissions and new works created for this city-wide exhibition in dialogue with Toronto’s diverse local contexts. Year-round public and learning programs bridge biennials and invite intergenerational audiences to explore the ideas that inspire the events.

“We are delighted to have Maryam bring her expertise, lived experience, and artistic practice to the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA). Placements like this create meaningful opportunities for emerging artists to contribute their knowledge while helping us build more accessible and inclusive ways for audiences to engage with contemporary art going into TBA's fourth iteration,” says Senior Manager, Learning and Community Partnerships Mary Kim.

“Maryam will be working with our storytellers and staff in Deaf Culture and De'VIA training which is meant to be universal for all audiences of all abilities, as well as integrating De'VIA methodologies into her storytelling sessions as a guest storyteller at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto,” says Kim. The sessions will be held on Oct. 31, Nov. 15 and Dec. 5. Confirmed dates and further information will be updated on 

De’VIA is an artistic practice that expresses Deaf experiences and perspectives through visual language, often drawing on Deaf culture, identity and lived experience.

“Things Fall Apart is usually read as collapse, but for Deaf people, rupture is also where something new gets built,” says Hafizirad. “De’VIA carries that same double meaning, and this placement is my chance to bring it into one of Canada’s major contemporary art events.”

Hafizirad’s own artistic practice reflects a journey across cultures and continents. After graduating from Isfahan University of Fine Arts in Iran in 2002, she exhibited internationally before moving to Malaysia and eventually settling in Canada in 2011.

Her early Persian classical paintings were often dark in subject and colour, while her later work began incorporating vibrant colours, textures and symbols drawn from both Persian culture and Deaf experience.

Pomegranates became symbols of hidden love released; fish swimming in water represented sincere human beings in her silent world of visual beauty; and birds came to embody her newfound freedom as a Deaf woman in a new country.

Through her TBA placement, Hafizirad hopes to demonstrate what Deaf-led learning can look like within a spaces of learning – not simply as an accessibility service, but as cultural exchange and knowledge-sharing.

“My goal is for Deaf people to be recognized as cultural leaders, not only as visitors,” she says. “This placement provides the opportunity to advance that vision in practice, moving beyond theory to institutional experience.”

Hafizirad is also a Deaf curator for the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf and serves on the faculty of the national Deaf Arts Academy and Deaf Arts Retreat Centre in Grande-Digue, New Brunswick.

Her work at TBA builds on that commitment, helping create cultural spaces where Deaf people are not only welcomed, but are actively shaping how art is experienced, interpreted and shared.

2026 TORONTO BIENNIAL: OCAD U COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Several artists associated with OCAD U are also participating in the Biennial, including:

Alum Bert Whitecrow, the Biennial’s Curatorial Fellow, a role supported by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment. A graduate of OCAD U’s Indigenous Visual Culture Program, Whitecrow is a Two-Spirit Anishinaabe artist, educator, and facilitator from Seine River First Nation (Chiima’aaganing), currently based in Toronto. Their multidisciplinary practice brings together beadwork, visual storytelling and digital media to imagine Indigenous futurisms and trace relationships between land, memory, and community.

Alum Rouzbeh Akhbari, who is an artist, filmmaker and human geographer based between Toronto and Lisbon. His practice combines documentary storytelling, fieldwork and poetic speculation across film and installation. Akhbari’s work investigates the political and ecological entanglements of trade and infrastructures across various geographies.

Dr. Rebecca Belmore, who is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist and a member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe). She is known for her work in sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance. Central to her work is the body in relation to history, place and Indigeneity. Dr. Belmore received an honorary doctorate from OCAD U in 2005.

OCAD U Associate Professor Emerit Bonnie Devine, who is also participating in the Venice Biennale, is known for her cross-disciplinary practice combining writing, sculpture, painting and performance.

Dr. Kent Monkman, who is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist, is known for his provocative reinterpretations of romantic North American landscapes. Dr. Monkman explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss and resilience – the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experience – in a variety of mediums. Dr. Monkman received an honorary doctorate from OCAD U in 2017.

Alum Chiedza Pasipanodya, a sculptor and writer whose practice examines material culture, diasporic memory and the transformative potential of ritual and form. They draw from Afro-diasporic and speculative frameworks to explore how objects become vessels for lived histories and cultural transmission.