Naghmeh Sharifi
HTMLLES Festival — Sineh-be-sineh: Reimagining Oral Traditions
Sunday, May 24, 2026, from 1 to 5 PM.
Registration is mandatory, as places are very limited.
A digital storytelling workshop using Adobe Fresco - all necessary equipment provided.
Sineh-be-Sineh: Reimagining Oral Traditions is a hands-on, bilingual workshop in which Naghmeh Sharifi invites participants to explore how memory, oral storytelling, and cultural heritage can be preserved and reimagined through accessible digital tools. The workshop is rooted in Sharifi’s recent multimedia project Fading Fables (Zar-Afshun), a contemporary reworking of an Iranian folktale narrated by her late grandmother, and it reflects the artist’s ongoing interest in intergenerational knowledge, feminist practices, and slow, intentional making using digital tools.
In this workshop, Sharifi guides participants to recall, research, or reflect on a family folktale, myth, or story passed down through oral tradition—particularly those carried by elders. Using Adobe Fresco, a digital drawing application, participants illustrate scenes inspired by these narratives, working slowly and mindfully to honour the emotional texture, gaps, and fragility inherent in memory. Each drawing session is recorded through the app’s time-lapse feature, resulting in short animated visuals that document both the story itself and the embodied labour of its retelling. Rather than focusing on technical mastery or digital perfection, Sharifi emphasize process, care, and reflection. Together, participants consider how digital tools—often associated with speed, extraction, and disposability—can be repurposed to support slowness, intimacy, and cultural continuity.
Through a feminist and diasporic lens, the artist invite participants to reflect on how stories shift across generations and how technology can hold space for these transformations and a become a contemporary storytelling tool in and of itself.
Artist
© Photo Credits: Tannaz Shirazi (Natourstudio)
Naghmeh Sharifi is an Iranian / Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtiá:ke / Montreal since 2009. She holds a BA in Visual Arts and one in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. In 2018 Sharifi completed her MFA degree at Concordia University. Her work has been exhibited in Iran, Germany, France, Italy, Mexico, United States, Canada and Macedonia. In Montréal, she has presented her work at Conseils des arts de Montréal (2015), Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (2017), the MAI (2018) and the Phi Centre (2020) among other sites. Sharifi was the recipient of the Impressions Residency grant at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Phi Centre's Parallel Lines Residency and the RBC Maison d'Ariane residency. Formally trained as a painter, in recent years Sharifi's choice of medium has expanded in response to her transforming subject matters to include, print, photo and time-based media.
This year’s edition of the HTMlles Festival, On a Human Scale, is organized in partnership with Ada X and its many partners.
Taking place in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, HTMlles is a festival in media arts and digital culture that brings together local, national and international artists, scholars, and activists who are passionate about critical engagement with new technologies from feminist perspectives. Each edition explores urgent socio-political questions through a series of exhibitions, talks, performances and workshops.