Freudian Typo: Condensed Word, Displaced Flesh

Delfina Foundation presents “Condensed Word, Displaced Flesh”, a newly commissioned exhibition by Iranian-Canadian duo Freudian Typo (Ghazaleh Avarzamani and Ali Ahadi). The project explores debt not as exception, but as a structural force within today’s political economy.

Inspired by the English version of Chad Gadya, where a goat bought for two coins triggers a chain of punishment, the exhibition unpacks how capital hides its tracks. The story becomes an allegory for intergenerational debt, where what disappears is not capital—but those burdened by it.

Visitors enter a surreal installation—a cross between tax office, clinic, and veterinary surgery. Here, meanings are condensed and displaced, echoing Freudian dream logic. At its core is a video in which a cat (the first debtor) undergoes a bizarre operation, as doctors search for two missing coins. When the coins remain unfound, the viewer is left to wonder: who’s next?

The show draws on Shakespeare, medicine, and religious morality to explore how finance and language shape agency and autonomy. Posters and sculptures reflect the Western moral lexicon of debt as guilt, finance as fate.

Public Events

Talk: June 13, 6:30–8:00pm – with Freudian Typo, Mohammad Salemy, and Erin Li

Tours:

July 9, 6:30–7:30pm – with Ghazaleh Avarzamani

July 23, 9–10am – breakfast & tour with Erin Li

August 9, 10–11am – breakfast & tour with Ghazaleh Avarzamani
All events free, booking essential.