Return of the Bright Night

Sophie Sabet
Canada | 2025 | Digital | 10 min | Farsi with English subtitles

Revisiting a moment of political and familial rupture to investigate how structures of power in political crises cause residual alienation across bodies, temporalities, and geographies. Return of the Bright Night mines the gaps and fissures within memories and migration tracing the past in order to negotiate the present.
AFK | Exhibitions

Return of the Bright Night

Originating from Sophie Sabet’s short film of the same name, this exhibition revisits a moment of political and familial rupture to investigate how structures of power in political crises cause residual alienation across temporalities, lineages, and geographies. Return of the Bright Night mines the gaps and fissures within memories and migration, tracing the past in order to negotiate the present.

Reception

Please join us for a reception followed by a tour with artist Sophie Sabet on Saturday, April 11, 2o26 from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Curated by
Jaclyn Quaresma
Date / Time
April 9, 2026–
April 25, 2026
Gallery Hours

Tuesday – Wednesday

12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Thursday – Friday

12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Saturday

12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Location
Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space

440-401 Richmond St West Toronto, ON M5V 3A8

Street level entrance, ramp, elevator, automatic doors, door width 34”. Gender neutral accessible (32”+) washrooms, stall, no automatic door. No accessible parking on site.  To access Bachir/Yerex, use either the stairs or elevator to the 4th floor.

For a map to Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space, click here

(ARTIST)

Sophie Sabet

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all. 

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us. 

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.