Self Portrait Each person has a specific characteristic that is part of their personality and inherence. Curly hair is part of my identity and a big part of my memories since hair follicles contain cellular material rich in DNA. I like to hide some part of my memory inside each curl which in this piece I have integrated Persian poetries between the hair strings.
Cage Aluminum wire mesh, embroidery thread, chain This piece is an expression of my conscience. When people get inside the head, they would see some Persian poetries has sewn inside the mesh but outside of the head the English poetries are apparent.
Cage
Distance In this piece, I sew my own hair and family members inside the silk not only because we share tons of memory, but to address how they tribute our loving relationship. I believe as an artist it is important to find our starting point in order to communicate with people, and for me, this initial point is my family and where I’m standing. In this piece, I’ve used my own hair, my sister’s, and my mother’s which each of them is from a different generation who lived part of their lives in Tehran and they immigrated together here and how we look back and see this big picture that how everything changed for us and so many things we’re waiting for to happen.
Silk, photo slide projection
“In the box” there were few roles of old negative slides belonging to my father’s photographs which he brought to the US. These slides include photos of people who some of them are not among us like my grandfather in this specific slide. Parts of the photo have been covered with silk fabric and Persian poetries written on it since to me, silk has this feeling of weightlessness, suspended, and fluid just like our memories.
Tea Room
Memories, thoughts, and imaginations we carry, sometimes have the same reflection as meditation to us. During our everyday life, there are some times that we sink in reminiscence of specific time, place, and/or people like contemplation but then just a sound or a smell that is happening around us will make us come back to the present moment and this transition happen just in a blink of an eye.