Exhibition: Wage Earner by Saeed Abdollahi

Exhibition Duration: 
October 5 - October 31, 2024

Exhibition Reception
Saturday, October 5, 2024, 3pm

Venue
Level 4, Calgary Central Library

Exhibition Statement

Since March 2022 I have been working part-time in a big-box store. Over time, I have become acquainted with co-workers whose situation parallels mine. We are newcomers who needed to find a job to meet our financial needs.

Getting to know my co-workers has revealed economic, cultural and language barriers that confront Canadian immigrants. In this work I focus on the adjustments immigrants must make with respect to employment and the cultural and professional identities they left behind when they came to Canada. Even though they arrived with stellar resumes from professional careers, finding similar employment in Canada is difficult and perhaps impossible.

It takes time and effort to deal with these issues, and immigrants typically handle even more challenges in their newly reconfigured lives. Newcomers to Canada may need a month, a year, or even a decade to resume their previous career paths. Some never return to their former careers, settling instead for the “temporary” job necessity demanded. In these portraits, the homogenized uniforms wage earners wear signal their current jobs and contrast with their personal environments, where more complex identities are suggested.

Through my observations and photographs, “Wage Earner” addresses a transitional gap newcomers in Canada face as they adjust to their new spaces, cultures, and identities.

About the artist:


Saeed Abdollahi is an Iranian photographer and architect based in Calgary. Holding an MFA from the University of Calgary, Saeed’s award-winning work highlights marginalized communities, drawing on his own immigrant experience to promote social change.