Roda Medhat
Roda Medhat is a Kurdish born artist, currently based in Toronto, Canada. Roda’s work is textile as sculpture, exploring the various ways traditional West Asian and Kurdish textiles can be translated onto other materials. The research behind the work heavily relies on themes of cultural preservation, archiving and imagined spaces. Using 3D scanning, textbooks and archives, Roda is piecing together a complete image of Kurdish textiles in history and as a modern craft.
Roda’s work has been recognized by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2023 Roda was selected as the 401 Richmond Career Launcher Prize recipient. In 2024 he also received the CIBC C2 Art Prize.
Dowry Chest
Acrylic printed rug, 2024
Roda Medhat
Roda’s paternal grandmother’s marital dresser, a dowry chest received on her wedding day in 1955, is rendered in textile. The original was meticulously preserved utilising 3D scanning, producing an exact digital replica of the chest. This was transposed onto a rug and reassembled to mirror the original, a process which preserves the physicality of the dresser but also engages with the historical practice of dowry exchange. The work explores ideas of culture preservation, archiving and the transportation and translation of material culture and material history.