reciprosphere
nasim makaremi nia + megan samms
August 1 - September 26, 2026
Grenfell Art Gallery Project Space
Public Programming:
Closing Reception and Artists in Conversation
Saturday, September 26, 3:00 - 5:00 PM
Nasim Makaremi Nia and Megan Samms with Visiting Curator, Jenelle M. Pasiechnik (co-curator, Farheen Haq: I am my mother’s daughter)
We consider our works, and our work-time together, as a documentation of political position/ing. Our work brings us together, the works are a site of conversation, of understanding, of committing to communication in many ways even if it’s difficult or when there’s misunderstanding. We keep going and we expand. Showing and sharing diversity is showing and sharing resistance; we know that the only way we can process and express complexity is through relational diversity. We know that the land gives us and shows us everything we need for these relational webs and that there are natural laws working; if we continue to choose to be part of these webs, then we live in place and time together and are deeply integrated.
This collaboration is currently a collection of 2 works on cotton rag paper made with handmade botanical and mineral paint and pencil. We’ve worked together at Eastern Edge Gallery in St. Johns; at Megan's studio in Katalisk, Ktaqmkuk; and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Ktunaxa, and Treaty 6, 7, and 8 territory.
Nasim Makaremi Nia and Megan Samms
July 2026
Nasim Makaremi Nia is an artist and art educator who has called Newfoundland and Labrador home since 2020. She is currently pursuing an Interdisciplinary PhD at Memorial University. She also holds an MSc in Solid-State Physics from the University of Mohaghegh Ardabili and a Master of Fine Arts from Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Nasim’s multidisciplinary practice includes painting, drawing, printmaking, and textiles. Her background in physics continues to influence the way she thinks about form, structure, materials, and meaning in her artwork.
She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, Eastern Edge Gallery, the Ottawa School of Art, Art Mûr, the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, and the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. She has received support from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and ArtsNL, and in 2022 she was awarded the Emerging Artist Award at the Excellence in Visual Arts Awards, presented by VANL-CARFAC.
Nasim’s work explores humanity, lived experience, women’s emotions, immigration, censorship, land, belonging, and identity. Through symbolic materials and imagery such as animals, sanitary pads, and folded paper, she creates work that reflects on personal and collective experiences, while opening space for conversations that are often difficult, hidden, or silenced.
Megan Samms (they/she) is L’nu and Nlha7kápmx, a visual and multidisciplinary artist, Indigenous agriculturalist, beekeeper, and community worker; their creative practice is integrated with territory/ies, agricultural and community work, and art inquiries and processes. Samms makes her life in her home community, in one of their two Ancestral land bases: Katalisk, Ktaqmkuk, Mi’kma’ki, Wabanaki Territory (colonially: Codroy Valley, newfoundland, canada). Samms was born and raised in Katalisk where her patrilineal, L’nu relations are from and continue to be. Samms’ matrilineal ancestry and relations are Nlha7kápmx and come from ltKumcheen (Lytton). Samms has spent significant time living across Turtle Island and continues to visit and travel. Samms is also a descendant of Italy, France, Wales, and Scandinavia without lived experience or cultural connection to Europe. Samms has been an occasional visitor to Scandinavian, North Atlantic territories where she is in relation through marine boreal bio-regionality.
Drawing from varied practices, Samms works with mediums and disciplines to articulate story, messages, and continual dialogue with(in) historic and contemporary place-based contexts. Samms is known for weaving and natural dye work, and uses performance interventions and photo to remember and triangulate entangled presence and relationship with place and time; through this, contributing to narratives, and re-narrativization/re-membering, of her territory(ies). Samms is a frequent collaborator and an emerging Ancestral Skin Marker; her mentors are Dion Kaszas, Jerry Evans, and Keith Callihoo. Samms’ considers weaving and skin marking to be two of the most important acts of presencing in her practice.
Samms is the chair of the board of Union House Arts in Port Union, Ktaqmkuk, and co-owner of Tuckaway Farm in her home community. Samms is alumni of Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning and her (forever continued) education is Land, peer-to-peer, and mentorship based.