April 22 – July 31
Exhibition – Erdem Taşdelen: A Minaret for the General’s Wife
Richmond Art Gallery
7700 Minoru Gate
Co-curated by Julia Paoli & Toleen Touq. A Minaret for the General’s Wife was commissioned and organized by Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art and SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre), Toronto. The exhibition is made possible with Leading Support from RBC Insurance and from SAHA Association, Istanbul. The starting point for Erdem Taşdelen’s exhibition is a little-known architectural oddity located in the Lithuanian city of Kėdainiai, approximately 120 km from the capital Vilnius. Built in 1880 and restored in 2007, this structure is a freestanding Ottoman-style minaret that peculiarly has no mosque below or attached to it, and currently sits in Kėdainiai Town Park in a former manor garden. Seized from its original owners after the failed rebellion of 1863 against Russian rule, the manor was eventually handed over to a Russian Army General named Eduard Totleben, who constructed the twenty-eight-metre tall minaret on the site.
Website: https://www.richmondartgallery.org/minaret