Opening Reception: Friday, 2 October 2026, 7-10PM

Rouzbeh Akhbari is an artist, filmmaker, and geographer based in Toronto and Lisbon. Working across film and installation, his practice investigates the political and ecological entanglements of trade, infrastructure, and human geography.

In 2024, Mercer Union invited the artist to develop a new film installation for his first institutional solo exhibition in Canada. Titled Of Wool and Diesel (2026), the work follows the smuggling of sheep by speedboat within the Strait of Hormuz and considers the act as part of an essential transcontinental supply chain, a network of informal trade, and a history of lawless seas with ties to 17th-century Portugal.

Of Wool and Diesel is the culmination of Akhbari's research and fieldwork over the last four years, developed alongside the artist’s debut documentary feature, Crossings: Kaleh Ziyarat (2026), a counterpoint to the exhibition.

Mercer Union’s collaboration with Akhbari emerges from our long-held commitment to commissioning new work and creating milestone opportunities for artists to bring their visions to fruition in Toronto. Through our commissioning platform Artist First, we invest in the lifecycle of a project from conception to realization, cultivating discovery, risk-taking, and artistic development through long-term support and dialogue. To learn more, visit mercerunion.org/support

Exhibition and program details forthcoming.

Rouzbeh Akhbari: Of Wool and Diesel is the thirteenth project developed through Mercer Union’s Artist First commissioning platform and Akhbari’s first institutional solo exhibition in Canada.