Parisa Rafat is a non-binary trans masc queer, and first generation Canadian Iranian who grew up in a melting pot of migrant and diasporic SWANA and South-east Asian communities as an uninvited settler on the traditional territories of the Kwantlen First Nations, also known Surrey BC. Parisa is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist and emerging filmmaker with works featured in Queer Arts Festival, James Black Gallery, as well as local underground community art shows such as Xin3ma, Unity Arts Collective, and Mixed Gems. Parisa is also a grassroots community organizer for their intersecting communities, examples of past events include City-Sitting urban intervention and placemaking; Norouz Party at Vancouver Black Library; pop-up Iranian film screenings; Queerooni Karaoke nights; educational lecture series on Kurdish Nationalism at Artspeak Gallery; with more exciting projects in the future. They are also currently finishing their Masters of Architecture program at the University of Calgary, and hope to synthesis their artistic explorations with their formative education to digest and dissolve their personal dilemmas, critiques, and wonders of the potentials of spatial and visual rejection of colonial and capitalistic societies inspired by queer theory, the abolition movement, and metaphysical spirituality.
Parisa hopes to facilitate the bridging of the various creative and queer SWANA communities together during their time with MENA FF as a means of healing the feelings of isolation and disparity for their local diasporic community.