Presence of an absence
2019-2021
Abadan, Iran
“Presence of an absence” installation at Abadan training center, petroleum museums and documents on March 2019. The installation is accompanied by archival material found in the “Apprentice Training Centre” in Abadan that was established by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1934, the first training center of it’s kind to train human resources for the petroleum industry. These archives showing personal data of oil workers in Abadan during the post- oil boom. This installation was hung over the training Centre for three months, reminding locals and visitors of the history of the building and gratifying the hard of its people.
Tehran, Iran
“Presence of an absence” installation at Darvazeh Dowlat Gas Station, petroleum museums and documents on October 2019.
This installation was installed at the Darvazeh Dowlat Gas Station Museum for a month, which was one of the first gas station in Tehran. The Installation process took a week, and since the area is usually so crowded the conversation and communication between the audience and the work was the most important and interesting part of it. In addition, it has always been assisted by simple workers to install it.
Baku, Azerbaijan
“Presence of an absence” installation at Yarat Contemporary Art Center, Baku, Azerbaijan , 2019-2020. In this project, gloves gathered from Iranian and Azerbaijani oil workers are assembled on a web-like net and hung on the exterior of the museum’s building.
Tehran, Iran
The first indoors installation of “Presence of an absence” at “Unity Hall”, 2020-2021.
In April 1967, a letter was sent by the minister of Culture and Art to a group of elites to inform them that “Soon, a big hall will be opened in Tehran in which poetry, music, and dance will be performed.” Up until then, people of Tehran called the unfinished building of Arfa Avenue, which has been under construction since 1954, the “Tehran Opera.” However, as the “Third Development Plan” which came from oil revenue money(1959-1967) accelerated, a great deal of effort was done over one year, so that the cultural center was inaugurated on October 26, 1967.
Philosophy of the bedroom
2015-2016
One of the most personal series of paintings that I’ve made; the beds in these paintings become a backdrop for explorations of the self. The solitude of the self gives me the opportunity to confront the natural self or id. The self, as seen through the repressive sociopolitical patriarchal lens of society, it’s like Someone is hidden here between war and peace, shame and joy alienated from my true self.
Cinema Europe
2018
Cinema Europe, as shown at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, is an installation based on four elements, namely, old wooden cinema chairs; several metres long black textile wall made of chadors; around forty small paintings; and a flickering light projection. The title of the work refers to a historical location in Iran’s capital Tehran, that is, the cinema of the same name once located on Jomhuri Street (near Baharestan Square). Moving through this installation as a visitor is similar to exploring the inner life of a society, to discover the life stories of people, especially women, from Iran.
Signal is weak
2017
http://www.peyvandha.ir/ is a website which means links, this website Automatically links you instead of blocked websites in Iran to images of nature. I was inspired by these images that are caught between the boundaries of break and continuity. Worlds so close yet so far. They are images of our world today, flawed and almost ready to collapse, either frozen against the volume of noise or slowly disintegrating in front of our very eyes, of nature that is destroyed and dreams that are broken.
One thousand and one nights
2020
Scheherazade is the storyteller and the main character of One Thousand and One Nights; she is a symbol of life, love and hope. she plants a seed of hope in the king’s heart, which symbolizes the drought that finally grows.
But this is the current story of one thousand and one nights, these drawings were inspired by some notes that my friends wrote about their thoughts, feeling and hopes during the quarantine.
Empty tablecloths-rice sacks and petroleum
2020-2021
Since 1908, when William Knox D’Arcy discovered a rich reservoir of oil in southwest Iran, a common topic of discussion in Iran is oil, a rich reservoir of blessing or curse? Among all of the slogans after or even before the revolution in Iran this one is much more repeated “Bringing oil money to people’s dinner tables”.
The tablecloth was considered a holy object; woven mostly by women in bright warm colors with pure love, and covered with the symbols of blessings and hope. Tablecloths were laid on the floor to pray for rain, rain for the arid land.In this project with the cooperation of other women, we collected empty rice sacks and sewed them together, turning them into large tablecloths. Then I painted these tablecloths with petroleum and paint. These layers are to symbolize how oil has laboriously become integrated into our daily lives.
Empty tablecloths-Kalamkari
2020-2023
The creation of “Empty Tablecloths” sparked in my mind when I saw a picture of people protesting against their unfair living conditions in Iran, They had been sitting around a tablecloth empty of food; the image of this silent and peaceful protest was full of untold stories.
For the empty tablecloths series, I insisted to use a fabric that has a history and different layers like land than a raw canvas, so in this specific collection, I used Kalamkari tablecloths utilizing Iranian motifs; but not those tablecloths that the Kalamkari masters create to sell; I collected the fabrics that they used as test fabrics, These fabrics were important to me due to the freely paint Kalamkari masters did on them and also they are somehow showing the real work that has been done in such workshops.
