What can we dream into reality? The newly commissioned and existing artworks in this exhibition often combine traditional elements of Iranian culture with imagination and provocation to offer emancipatory perspectives on identity and gender.
A multimedia installation recalling the Saghi, a young cupbearer boy with feminine beauty, conveys a dismantled embodiment. In a series of photographs, the self captured against intensifying public settings transforms into resilient wildflowers growing in harsh conditions as metaphoric reflections of violent restraining mechanisms. Found cinema footage is stitched with original text to reveal the limits of representation set by regulatory bodies. New media techniques using textiles reproduce the painting of an embracing couple where gender binaries are blurred to counter erasures. Archival sounds and revolutionary chants create a soundscape of echoing hopes for liberated futures. A sculpture materialised from a dream of a sacred tree draped with hair references abject and divine femininity. Glazed ceramic pieces, rooted in ancestral crafts, explore ongoing feminist struggles and inspire a shift from anger and grief towards radical joy.
Curated by
Yalda Bidshahri
Participating artists:
Dorsa Asadi, Chupan Atashi, Gisou Golshani, Fatemeh Kazemi, Lilian Nejatpour, Niloofar Taatizadeh, Maryam Tafakory
at Bayt AlMamzar, Dubai
until October 12th, 2024