مجلس Majles / Sitting Room

Rooted in archival Persian rug work, the inaugural Step-Up Series commission transforms the West Block staircases and courtyard into a vivid cultural tapestry, one that threads migration, memory, and everyday connection through the local architecture to welcome gathering and mark shared urban space.

For the inaugural Step-Up Series commission, Anahita Akhavan presents مجلس Majles / Sitting Room—a multi-dimensional mural that transforms the West Block staircases and celebrates community gathering spaces. Drawing on archival images of Persian rug work and the luminous blues of lapis lazuli, the mural unfolds as a dynamic collage of patterned histories.

Across Iranian cultures and diasporas, rugs are more than decorative—they are living spaces. Places for sitting, sharing meals, telling stories, engaging in prayer, and coming together with loved ones. Carried across generations, these textiles hold social values and cultural memory within their threads. The rug is not simply an object, but an architecture of relation.

Majles refers to a gathering place. In Farsi, it is a room for sitting and being together. Traditionally, it is organized not around objects, but around people: seating lines the edges, the centre remains open, and no single point claims attention. Majles support conversation without hierarchy. It is a setting where community comes into being.

Rendered in ultramarine—a pigment historically made from lapis lazuli and traded across continents—the mural tells a parallel story of movement, tracing routes linking Southwest Asia to Europe and beyond, echoing ongoing journeys of migration that continue to remake home across distance and time.

Reimagining West Block as a kind of urban sitting room, Akhavan invites us into an open centre within the city, where movement slows, encounters unfold, and the space adapts to those who gather within it. Like the majles, it has no single focal point, encouraging visitors to engage with one another and create connections.

مجلس Majles / Sitting Room opens a new way of being together in the city: one rooted in joy, exchange, and everyday connection. West Block provides a shared ground—where cultures, textures, and communities meet.

The Step-Up Series is a multi-year initiative, curated by The Bentway and presented in partnership with Choice Properties, which transforms West Block into a platform for public art. Through an annual commission and complementary programming, the series invites residents and visitors to encounter this unique site in new and unexpected ways.

Each year, a GTHA-based artist will create a site-specific mural in dialogue with the architecture of the West Block staircases—reimagining these everyday passageways as sites of reflection, connection, and creative expression.

مجلس Majles / Sitting Room launches this collaboration, marking the first in a series of annual presentations that explore the Gardiner Corridor’s potential as a vibrant civic spine. Together, The Bentway and Choice Properties advance a shared vision for more connected, inclusive, and thriving public spaces.

مجلس Majles / Sitting Room by Anahita Akhavan is curated by The Bentway and presented in partnership with Choice Properties.