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.
About Yalda Bidshahri:
Yalda Bidshahri is an Iranian writer and curator in the United Arab Emirates. She creates communal spaces of imagination and freedom through exhibitions, programs and publications developed in close collaboration with artists and practitioners across disciplines.
About Bayt AlMamzar:
Bayt AlMamzar, Dubai is an independent art space founded as a response to the needs of the local contemporary creative community, welcoming innovative, experimental, and collaborative approaches. Motivated by the belief in constructive critical dialogue and the free exchange of opinions, Bayt AlMamzar currently houses artist studios, residency programs, exhibitions, public programs, a growing library collection, and more.
Artists: Dorsa Asadi, Chupan Atashi, Gisou Golshani, Fatemeh Kazemi, Lilian Nejatpour, Niloofar Taatizadeh, Maryam Tafakory. Curated by Yalda Bidshahri.
Press release from Bayt AlMamzar
Image: Fatemeh Kazemi. Still from Poor Knee; [Loose Tongue]; Trigger Finger. 2024. Image courtesy of the artist
