Art’s ability to bridge cultural boundaries is a central theme in Mandana Moghaddam’s work. Encompassing human communication, migration, and feminism, her art draws inspiration from Iranian cultural history and pressing topical events. Her primary media are video, sculpture, and installation with hair, mirror mosaic, and concrete as recurring materials.
The exhibition shows mirror mosaic works from the series Underlandet [The Wonderland] and Chelgis I, a human-scale sculpture covered in hair and enclosed in a glass case. The title refers to a girl in a Persian tale whose name means ‘forty braids’. Moghaddam has created the new sculpture What they gonna do with the inevitable growth of sprouts?, as well as a new work in the Underlandet series, especially for Bildmuseet. The exhibition title reminds us of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian student Mahsa Jina Amini, who passed away on the 16th of September 2022, shortly after being arrested by the morality police in Iran, accused of not wearing her headscarf correctly. Her death marked the beginning of nationwide demonstrations for human rights under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.”
Press release from Bildmuseet
Image: Mandana Moghaddam. The Wonderland. 2013-ongiong. © Mandana Moghaddam / Bildupphovsrätt 2023
