Vancouver Biennale Kambiz Sharif “NEED” Sculpture

Need by Iranian-Canadian artist Kambiz Sharif is a summation of his experience as a new immigrant, a life based on re-imagining oneself in a new place. The idea for the sculpture came to Sharif during his first year in Canada in 2009. Despite its apparent abstraction, this shape carries deep personal meaning. It reaches upwards with an expression of need and gratitude and the potential of reciprocity, like three outstretched fingers or a seedling pushing upwards. Its core contains the untold desires held by all new immigrants and the continuous re-imagining of one’s home in this new place. Need marks a junction where the converging streets lead the flow of traffic to vastly different neighbourhoods of the city. At these crossroads, the sculpture’s reflective surface makes it come into view like a mirage, or a flash of recognition of shared experience in a stranger’s eyes.