Project Description

Home / Members / Graduate Students / Ashar Mobeen

RESEARCH AREAS:

  • History of Science

  • Philosophy of Science

  • Cosmology and Visual Culture

CONTACT:

  • amobeen@uwo.ca

  • Department of Visual Arts, Western University
    John Labatt Visual Arts Centre, Room 240
    London, ON N6A 5B7

ASHAR MOBEEN

Doctoral Student;
Department of Visual Arts, Western University

I am a Canadian-Pakistani writer, curator, and third-year art and visual culture PhD candidate at the Department of Visual Arts at Western University. I study ancient and indigenous civilizations and the manifestation of astronomical understanding within their art and architecture. I’m focused on exploring the stories of groups marginalized by Eurocentric ideologies. I then juxtapose the worldviews of these groups with current scientific and epistemological models in the context of the Anthropocene. I am also working toward implementing new pedagogical methods in the classroom to integrate these worldviews through an interdisciplinary and decolonial lens!

Beyond academia, I’m involved in curatorial projects, including exhibitions like In the Heart of the Bronze: A Liu Shiming Experience and of many worlds in this world, both featured at Western’s artLAB Gallery. As an active member at the Centre for Sustainable Curating, I’m also committed to exploring low-carbon methods in exhibition-making, ensuring sustainability is at the core of my curatorial practice.

I also host the Ecologies in Practice podcast series, a project dedicated to exploring the intersections of art, sustainability, and environmental justice. Through in-depth conversations with artists, curators, environmental activists, and scholars, the podcast unpacks how creative practices can respond to urgent ecological crises.

Publications
Exhibition Catalogues

  • Soheila Esfahani, Mélika Hashemi, and Ashar Mobeen. In Search of a Loss of Self: The Language of    Alterity. Exhibition catalogue. Toronto: Flash Reproductions, 2025.
  • Mobeen, Ashar. In the Heart of the Bronze: A Liu Shiming Experience. Exhibition catalogue.   London: Western Graphics, 2024.
  • Mobeen, Ashar. of many worlds in this world. Exhibition catalogue. London: Western Graphics, 2023.

Exhibition Reviews

  • Mobeen, Ashar. I have a story to tell but what it is I cannot describe. artLAB Gallery Publication Series,       2022.

Peer Reviewed Journals

  • Mobeen, Ashar. “Colonial Entanglements: Rethinking Space, Spatiality, and Spacetime”. tba: Journal      of Art, Media, and Visual Culture 6 (1):144-57. https://doi.org/10.5206/tba.v6i1.19216.
  • Mobeen, Ashar. “Wonders of the Ancestral Puebloans: Astronomers, Engineers, and Magicians of    the Four Corners,” Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas 16, 1 (2025). [Forthcoming]
  • Mobeen, Ashar. “Cosmic Echoes in the Art and Architecture of the Islamic Golden Age,” Culture and Cosmos, Vol. 28 no. 1, Spring/Summer 2025. [Accepted]

Conferences, Posters, and Invited Speaking

2025

  • EnviroCon 2025: Sharing Environmental Knowledge, Western University, March 21, 2025 – Paper Presentation Title: Echoes of the Delta: Mangroves, Memory, and Climate Justice in Pakistan
  • RASC/a Art History Graduate Student Conference, Southern Methodist University, March 7-8, 2025 – Paper Presentation Title: Icons in Flux: Reimagining Political Imagery in Pakistan’s Shifting Landscape

2024

  • Universities Art Association of Canada Conference, Western University, October 24-26, 2024 – Session Chair: zameen kay dastaan (stories of the land): reimagining our future through Pakistani art
  • Scientific Methodology: Rotman Graduate Student Conference 2024, Western University, September 19-20, 2024 – Paper Presentation Title: Decolonial Pathways in Scientific Methodologies
  • Collecting Her Thoughts: Lightning Talks on Women Art Collectors Across Time, Boston University, June 14, 2024 – Paper Presentation Title: Mapping the Cosmos: Vera Rubin and the Art of Astronomy
  • INSAPXII: Thirty Years of Astronomy, Art and Inspiration, Ionion University, May 20-24, 2024 – Paper Presentation Title: Cosmic Echoes in the Art and Architecture of the Islamic Golden Age
  • Panelist, Interdisciplinary Science, Western Physics Undergraduate Conference 2024. Western University, March 22, 2024. – Panelists: Robert DiSalle, Moreno-Maza, Christopher Smeenk, Francesca Vidotto, Ashar Mobeen
  • EnviroCon 2024, Western University, March 22, 2024 – Paper Presentation Title: Planting New Worlds: How Astrobiology and Decolonial Theory Can Reshape Sustainable Farming
  • Western Graduate Research Forum, Western University. March 15, 2024 – Poster Presentation Title: From Stars We Come, To Stars We Return: Exploring Ancient and Indigenous Cosmic Worldviews
  • Organizer and Moderator, terra aesthetica: art, activism, and the tectonics of power and pedagogy. Western University. March 5, 2024 – Guest Speakers: Emily Chudnovsky and Gwenyth Chao           

2023

  • EnviroCon 2023: Intercultural Dialogue on Environment and Sustainability, Western University. March 24, 2023 – Paper Presentation Title: you are what you eat, from your head to your feet
  • Western Grad Conference. Travel Light: Apprehending Being on the Move, Western University. March 10-11, 2023 – Paper Presentation Title: The Implications of the ƛCDM Model of Cosmology on the Post- Colonial Terrain of Queen’s Park, Toronto
  • 46th Annual UBC AHVA Graduate Symposium. University of British Columbia March 2-31, 2023 – Paper Presentation Title: Wonders of the Ancestral Puebloans: Astronomers, Engineers, and Magicians of the Four Corners

2022

  • Universities Art Association of Canada Conference, University of Toronto. October 27-29, 2022 – Paper Presentation Title: Deconstructing the Colonial Landscape of Queen’s Park, Toronto Through the Lens of the ƛCDM Model of Cosmology
  • Guest Speaker, Classics 3N03: Connectivity in the Ancient Mediterranean, McMaster University, March 29, 2022 – Presentation Title: When the Greeks met the Scythians

Planetarium Shows (at the W.J. McCallion Planetarium, McMaster University, Hamilton)

  • November 2019: Wonders of the Solar System
  • June 2019: The Search for Life: Are We Alone?
  • February 2019: Galaxies: Island Universes

Teaching Experience

Western University

Teaching Assistant, “Expressionism to Surrealism,” Jan – April 2025
Senior Arts Instructor, Sport Western March Break Camp, March 2025
Teaching Assistant, “Special Topics in Fashion, Textiles and Art,” Sept 2024 – Dec 2024
Teaching Assistant, “Art, Media, and Popular Culture,” Jan 2024 – April 2024
Teaching Assistant, “Islamic Visual Culture,” Sept 2023 – Dec 2023
Arts and Science Instructor, Sport Western Summer Camp, May 2023 – Sept 2023
Senior Arts Instructor, Sport Western March Break Camp, March 2023
Teaching Assistant, “Collecting Art and Culture,” Jan 2023 – April 2023
Teaching Assistant, “Art and Visual Culture: Baroque to Contemporary,” Sept 2022 – Dec 2022
Teaching Assistant, “Art and Visual Culture: Baroque to Contemporary,” Jan 2022 – April 2022
Teaching Assistant, “Art, Science and Technology,” Sept 2021 – Dec 2021


McMaster University

Teaching Assistant, “Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics,” Sept 2019 – Dec 2019
Astronomy Instructor, Mini-U Summer Camp, March 2019 – Aug 2019


Columbia International College

Arts Instructor, Summer Camp, May 2018 – Aug 2018