Hiding in Plain Sight By Anahita Norouzi

Hiding in Plain Sight centers on Heracleum Persicum, commonly known as Giant Hogweed, a plant native to Iran that was displaced during the colonial era. Once prized as an ornamental species, it is now categorized as “alien and invasive” in Europe and North America. The video explores how colonial histories have shaped the concepts of “native” and “non-native,” creating artificial landscapes and distorting the relationship between humans and the natural world. The smooth, leisurely-moving images are extracted from surveillance drone footage tasked with locating and monitoring Giant Hogweed in Canada. By removing the rapid, jarring movements from the original footage, these images are transformed into a contemplative exploration of the landscape, prompting a reevaluation of our connection to nature.

About the artist

Anahita Norouzi is a multidisciplinary artist, originally from Tehran and active in Montreal since 2018. Her practice is research-driven, derived from marginalized histories, with a particular focus on the legacies of botanical explorations and archeological excavations, especially when scientific research became entangled in the colonial exploitation of non-Western geographies.

Articulated across a range of mediums and materials including sculpture, installation, photography, and video, her work interrogates different cultural and political perspectives on the human and non-human “other,” underlining the complex space between conflicted state of displaced people, plants, and cultural artifacts, and the responsibilities of the host country.

Norouzi’s work have been shown internationally, including BIENALESUR, the International Contemporary Art Biennial of South America (Buenos Aires), Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. She has received numerous grants, fellowships, and awards, most notably, the Grantham Foundation Creation Award, Liz Crockford Artist Fund Award, the Vermont Studio Center Merit. She is the winner of Contemporary art award of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2023) and Impressions residency at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2022), and the finalist for the Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize and the Sobey Art Award (2023).