Sense Of Belonging
Sense Of Belonging
The sense of duality that lives within me, an Iranian immigrant women living in Canada.
Multi Media Tryptichs
It all began with the thought of censoring my nipple for an Ig post. The immediate judgment of extended family members had me thinking, why? Why did I have to take their opinions into consideration before posting something on my social media? Was it my culture? My religion? My upbringing? My people?
What was it?
I had to find out.
**Please take a moment to view the collection as a whole and by threes to form your own feelings, thoughts and opinions before reading the text below.
The second triptych is an expression of The Male Gaze and Sexualization of Women. Raw meat represents disgust, the raw emotions of women, and most importantly, how they are viewed within society and being treated. When looking at a nude female body, it’s always considered sexual. I wanted to shift this perspective and create a new feeling. I wanted the audience to be appalled, feel something different and what better way than to show woman’s feeling of disgust and sexualization.
In conclusion,
Each piece is an expression of oppression, self identity and various dualities that have made me who I am as a person today. I am the reflection of my culture, my family and the two countries that are considered home to me. Immigrating for freedom but losing all the heritage and culture that came with living in Iran. Immigrating for self expression, but still feeling out of place. Immigrating to find ones self, but just finding newer dimensions to explore. It’s about challenging ideals and self exploring that makes one grow from within to find a sense of self. With that being said, these pieces were created to spark a feeling within the viewer, so I encourage you to look a little closer and pause a little longer.
Freedom Vs. Sense Of Belonging, is a series that explores my dual identity, formed within living in Iran, a fundamentalist religious country and immigrating to Canada at a young age. I aimed to understand how women's dressing habits were affected by living in a religious fundamentalist country, but after taking closer looks at different women who had fled Iran for different yet very similar reasons, I realized it’s not the physical aspects of the clothes that I’m looking at, but the many small details that emanate women from having freedom. This collection is a self exploration, it is an attempt to embrace our dualities, identities and individualities.
My art contains elements of nostalgia that pay homage to my roots, culture, family and many traditions which I still cherish. These various Iranian elements are implemented through out, including clothing articles such as old floral head scarves, reminders of my grandmothers headdresses and other objects that each represent a different aspect of my life. The pomegranate is prominent, as a sweet memory of “shabe yalda”, the longest night of the year. That one night of the year, my family would get together and exchange old stories, enjoy one anothers company while munching on traditional snacks and loads of pomegranate. This symbol combined with plastic, had a notion of suffocation of these traditions. Some traditions are kept alive, while many get forgotten after immigration, one of the many reasons being the lack of family members to share and create new memories with. A part of this collage also represents a piece of my family and beloveds that are no longer amongst us but forever a part of me.
