When Western professor and artist Soheila Esfahani sat down to draft designs for a coin collection celebrating the country’s diversity, she looked down at the beautiful artwork on the floor beneath her feet.
It was a vintage rug.

Esfahani’s design for the Royal Canadian Mint’s Celebrating Diversity collection. The coin is called “Transcendence and Tranquility”. (Royal Canadian Mint image)
Esfahani’s inspiration led to the winning design for a new coin, now in circulation through the Royal Canadian Mint collection Celebrating Canada’s Diversity.
“In my own art practice, I use a lot of ornamental designs from Iranian culture. I also look at the idea of objects as ways of transferring culture. I thought, ‘what’s the one object Iranians tend to bring when they immigrate?’ We all tend to bring an original Persian rug with us,” Esfahani, MFA’10, said.
“It usually includes the Eslimi design, the arabesque designs. There’s usually a medallion at the centre, with the border around. The coin, for me, became that kind of medallion.”
So, she used those traditional patterns – intricately intertwined curved lines and floral shapes – to spark design ideas. The coin is based on the medallion in the centre of her own rug, brought from Iran during a trip back after immigrating to Canada in 1992.
Genuine turquoise, chosen because of its presence and popularity in regions of Iran, is embedded in the centre of the coin. The bright blue-green gemstone and its variation means no two coins are exactly the same.
Historical inspiration
Esfahani, a visual arts professor who received her master of fine arts from Western, wove symbols and shapes extending from ancient Persia to modern-day Canadian-Iranian culture into the coin, with lotus flowers, paisley patterns and maple leaves twisted together.
“Iranian culture has a very long, long history, so I wanted to bring that ancient past to something more current,” she said.
Esfahani hit the mark.
She’s receiving an outpouring of congratulations and excitement from the Iranian community.
“People on Instagram have been sending me images of the coins they have bought, saying ‘We are the proud owners of these coins.’ I’m so glad they connected with the idea.” – Soheila Esfahani, visual arts professor and artist
Translating art, objects, culture
Esfahani purchased her own art – a first for the award-winning artist – and now has both the silver and gold coins. She’s hoping to give a few of them as gifts. Since the coins are in circulation through the Royal Canadian Mint, the design is now owned by the Mint.
It’s an interesting reversal for an artist who works with ideas of cultural translation and movement. One of her projects involves painting large-scale Eslimi designs on shipping pallets and then putting them back into circulation, “as the objects they are,” she said.
“The movement and transfer of culture comes with the movement of ornamental objects. Over history, how does ornamentation move? We bring these objects from one culture to the next,” Esfahani said.
“As immigrants, you bring your culture but also as tourists we collect culture – we bring back knick-knacks of the Eiffel Tower. Once we collect it, it kind of stops being in circulation; we claim it. These coins are the objects that people will claim.”
The coin is available both in silver and gold. It’s the fifth design in the Celebrating Canada’s Diversity collection, which also includes designs to represent India, Ireland, Quebec and Haida Gwaii, B.C.
It was an unexpected assignment for the visual arts professor, but one for which she’s thankful. She is even bringing a project lead from the Mint to one of her classes as a virtual guest speaker because her students were so enthralled with the journey to design a new coin.
“Even though I’m an artist, I’ve never done something like this,” Esfahani said. “I never thought I would design an object that’s meant to last.”
Esfahani’s design
The Royal Canadian Mint describes the new coin designed by Esfahani this way:
The Royal Canadian Mint’s 2024 Celebrating Canada’s Diversity coin incorporates design elements that reflect Iranian cultural traditions, spanning Ancient Persia to contemporary interpretation by an Iranian-Canadian artist, represented by Eslimi patterns and Shah Abbasi flower motifs from traditional carpet designs, lotus flowers inspired by the reliefs of Persepolis, stylized maple leaves symbolizing Canadian identity, and a paisley motif in the centre.
The back bears the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, present on all Canadian currency. It has been designed by Susanna Blunt.