Of Wool and Diesel

Relying on archival research, Rouzbeh Akhbari’s Of Wool and Diesel (2026) considers border landscapes and their entanglements with seafaring histories. Rouzbeh’s video installation examines trade-linked histories along the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a thirteen-member multi-modal (train, highway, maritime) trade corridor that strives to connect Eastern Europe and West Asia to the Indian Ocean via the western route through the Caucasus, the central Caspian route, and the eastern route through Central Asia, all of which converge southward through Iran toward the Strait of Hormuz.33 His specific area of focus in Of Wool and Diesel includes the port of Khasab in the Musandam Peninsula, Oman, and the Caspian littoral around Astara, Azerbaijan, which he has been studying for five years. The narrative develops through the presentation of archival research developed across continents— including in Toronto, Lisbon, London, and the National Library of Azerbaijan—during an intense period of working amidst the US/ Israel war in Iran and the resulting collapse of formal and informal trade routes, including the reported mining of the Strait of Hormuz

Co-commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art, Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art, HANGAR Centro de Investigação Artística (Lisbon), and the National Gallery of Canada’s National Engagement Initiative. The exhibition is organized by Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art, co-presented with the Toronto Biennial of Art, and made possible with the generous support of RBC. The artist would like to acknowledge support from Partners in Art, the Ontario Arts Council, the Alserkal Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.