Persian literature convention in Sarajevo

ASPS 2013 Conference: Program

 

by Ari Siletz, Iranian



This September the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina will host the 6th biennial convention of the Association for The Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS). The association publishes research on societies significantly influenced by Persian culture wherever in the world they may be, which is why the gathering is in Sarajevo this year. Under Ottoman rule until 1878, Bosnians still carry the Ottoman high regard for Persian literature and still have institutions dedicated to the study of Persian. Over the centuries, this Eastern European city has produced several poets who wrote in Persian.

This year novelist Mahmoud Dowlatabadi will attend the convention to receive a tribute from ASPS for his lifelong contribution to Persian literature. His monumental novel Kelidar  has been widely read in Iran since the first of ten volumes was published in 1977, but one of his novels written during the early 1980s is still at the censor’s office waiting for an approval that may never come. The Colonel is available in German, English, Italian and Hebrew, but not in the original Persian. The reason is that Dowlatabadi has declined to make the revisions required by the censor’s office.

The nature of the required revisions are easy to guess. In its literary treatment of the diverse political groups in Iran’s recent history The Colonel plays no favorites when it comes to the Islamic Republic. Dowlatababdi, however, is just an accidental dissident, he has no agenda other than what his art creates naturally. A long time ago he asked his SAVAK captors why he was being detained. They said they didn’t really know but others who had good reason for being detained had all read his books!

I am curious to know how Bosnian Persophiles feel about Dowlatabadi. The Ottoman fascination with Persian art and culture was due in no small part to the influence of Rumi who has been an accidental collaborator throughout history. In a Rumi inspired society power and wealth are regarded as impediments to attaining the full human potential so that the abuse of power is viewed as a spiritually imprisoning act. In a way the aggressor loses and the victim wins. From a modern perspective this mindset leads to a docile population, but from a historical perspective obedience to the king used to be a sign of a healthy society. Today, artists confrontiing Iran’s social issues struggle in a no man’s land between the modern narrative of collective power via individual dignity and the sublimely fatalistic narrative of medieval poets whose heritage is still carried by the Iranian reader.

During the tribute to Dowlatabadi the program’s artistic director Ariana Barkeshli will touch on both perspectives by performing Aminolah Hossein’s piano piece Prelude no. 1, a tribute to Omar Khayam, and also a piano piece by Alireza Mashayekhi titled In Search of Lost Time.  If this is a reference to the Marcel Proust novel of the same name, the choice of the piece suggests a flattering statement by the artistic director. In addition to sharing with Kelidar the distinction of being one of the longest novels ever written, Proust's In Search of Lost Time is considered by some to be a work that defined modern novel. Perhaps Dowlatabadi will notice and be amused by the compliment.

More info at ASPS website.


Ari Siletz is the author of the Mullah With No Legs and Other Stories. His works have been anthologized in several collections. His latest short story appears in Tremors: New Fiction By Iranian American Writers (University of Arkansas Press 2013).

 Via Iranian

Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran

by Meghan Nuttall Sayres, The Huffington Post

My last post was entitled "Media Washed Middle East," in which I wrote about my experiences traveling and writing about the Middle East. Those sojourns abroad culminated in an anthology that was just published this spring by Nortia Press entitled Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran. It is a collection of essays, poetry, interviews and blog posts written by ordinary people who have found friendships, mentors and muses in Iran. The anthology aims to challenge stereotypes about Iran and its people currently perpetuated in the Western media. Below is the introduction to the book...

Prior to my first trip to Iran in March 2005, when I was invited to speak at the country's First International Children's Book Festival, I had looked for a book to help relieve doubts about my decision to go. At first, I found none. Then a friend gave me a copy of Alison Wearing's Honeymoon in Purdah. Wearing's account of her travels in Iran during the summer of 2000 helped me to deconstruct the myth that Iran is a haven of sequestered women and armed masked martyrs. Her book -- infused with humor -- showed me that I, too, would be welcomed there.

Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran came about because my friends, colleagues and I have developed a profound appreciation of Iranian culture and an abundance of stories about the friendships we made and the generosity we received in Iran. On our journeys we found another Iran, one that lies in stark contrast to the ominous picture of their culture painted by the American and other Western mainstream media, which has repeatedly tainted our collective perspective on Iran. A recent study discovered that half of Americans view Iran as a threat and opinions of that country have worsened in recent years; yet, two thirds of us have never met an Iranian. Perhaps the study suggests that the media's focus on our nation's foreign policies and on the idea of national security prevents us from considering the richness of Persian history and culture, which reflects a long-held tradition of peace and hospitality.

Perhaps the bias against Iranians is bound up in a bias against Muslims. After the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 polls revealed that the perceived threat from Muslims living in the United States and abroad increased significantly. While many Iranians in the U.S. and Iran are Muslim, they are also secular, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Bahai, or follow other spiritual paths. An Iranian acquaintance of mine living in Tehran attends her father's mosque and her mother's Catholic church. Dr. Carl Ernst, a professor of Islamic Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill estimates that there are at least 300,000 Christians in Iran today. Historically, in Sasanian Iran, Christianity was a prominent religion and home to a number of Eastern churches that were considered heretical by the Byzantines.

Whatever the cause, the purpose of this anthology is to counter an insufficient understanding of a nation and its people. We hope this anthology of essays, interviews, poems and blogs from people who have traveled or lived in this country of golden deserts, cypress-scented mountains, and inexpressibly-beautiful tiled mosques, will help readers to better interpret the disinformation and stereotypes about Iran that might eclipse what the human heart may discover: a warm, educated and artistic people, whose dreams are much like our own. We are hopeful that this collection will help to inspire others to get to know their Iranian neighbors at home and perhaps even travel to Iran.

Indeed, I made many new friends and acquaintances in Iran. So have all the contributors to this collection. This volume is enriched by their varied backgrounds; here are voices of botanists, a Persian dafs musician, a radio show host, professors of Persian history and literature, filmmakers, grandmothers, teachers, carpet dealers, adult and children's book writers. Many are of Western ancestry and thus have little or no familial ties with Iran. Few knew each other prior to submitting their work for this anthology. I think of each of them as "missionaries in reverse," a term borrowed from musician Cameron Powers, who has traveled in the Middle East connecting with people through the love of music as founder of Musical Missions of Peace. The American contributors in this anthology did not go to Iran to promote Western culture or to preach any religion. They went to learn from our supposed foe, to enrich and enlighten their own lives through their experiences. Reading their work, I felt a rind peeling back and seeds of a new garden spilling over me -- a leafy space where a fresh breeze of conversation flows. Their testimonies bestow a pomegranate-like radiance by which others may see.

The Iranian contributors' memories and praise for Iran spoke of love: of friends and relatives missed; of a deep yearning for the sands of their homeland; of Persian cooking, art, classical literature, music and traditions.

Many of the contributors visited Iran for a few weeks, others worked and lived there for several years. Some grew up in Tehran, but now live in the United States and other Western countries. A few of them have always lived in Iran. What the non-Iranians have in common are fond memories of those they've met during their stays in Iran. As Rowan Storm writes in her blog, "These everyday meetings with vulnerable and open-hearted people are what provide the foundation for making a difference in this world." The Iranian voices of the diaspora and of those living in Iran give us a seldom-heard view of their homeland, one which defies the bleak picture painted by some expats whose voices have become hostages of yesterday's demons. The Iranian writers in this collection move beyond the past with an open mind, give us the opportunity to hear their questions and know their assessment of us, from which we may grow.

Dr. Martin Luther King said during the Vietnam War, "The world now demands of America a maturity we may not be able to achieve." He called for a worldwide fellowship "that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation," and for "an all- embracing and unconditional love for all men." The writers in this anthology from both East and West, who have made an effort to find themselves in others, help show our diplomats and public officials a path toward that maturity. The synchronicity, the friend- ships, and forces that drew these writers from many different continents together in this book is--to borrow a notion from the late Cistercian monk Thomas Merton--"an epiphany of certainties we could not know in isolation." An epiphany that affirms a deep belief that there is a more sympathetic way to live and gaze upon this world. President Barack Obama's rhetoric toward Iran seems to suggest a willingness to undertake a small but crucial step toward Dr. King's dream of a mature America. One that may lead the world to a more inclusive vision of compassion.

In This Collection 

Within, you will find a communion of spirits among new voices from many countries: America, Iran, Greece, New Zealand, Britain, Turkey, and more. Original essays will take you, among many other destinations, into a bakery in Tehran to bake bread; on a journey from Tabriz to the Turkish-Iranian border in search of a lost passport; alongside a painter whose work is transformed at the foot of Hafiz's shrine in Shiraz; into the heart of an Iranian poet as she questions her new American identity; high into the Alborz Mountains to discover flowering lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina) in its native haunts; deep into the woods on a dark winter night to witness a Zoroastrian fire ritual; and beneath a bridge over the River Zayandeh to smoke hookah.

Love and Pomegranates opens with the section First Impressions and Persian Hospitality which captures immediate reactions to Iran as written in blogs as well as reflective essays on returning to Iran after a prolonged absence. It also holds stories of Iranians of the diaspora stepping foot on the soil of their ancestors for the first time and tales of random acts of kindness experienced by Westerners, such as a spontaneous all-day tour with a stranger. Natives talk about tourists they've hosted or welcomed to their country. In the section Finding Ourselves in the Other Westerners talk about Iranians they've known and loved, and about finding common ground with others they've just met. Iranians living outside of Iran write about their adjustment to their adopted coun- tries, their nostalgia for the traditions of their homeland and what it means to be part of the diaspora. The sections Arts and Culture and Islam and Other Faiths share stories by artists and scholars who traveled to Iran in pursuit of their muse or work. They express their admiration for Iranian musicians, painters, writers, Islamic saints, Sufis, nature, art and architecture. A New Path Forward touches upon the United States' past and cur- rent relationship with Iran. It includes thoughts on how the West might move toward a better understanding of Iranians at home and abroad through cultural, academic and medical exchanges, as well as other creative avenues.

A theme running through many of these essays by contributors from both East and West, involves having experienced in Iran a sense of ecstasy -- a communion with a larger reality, a universal light. It seemed fitting to include in this collection poems by the classical Persian Sufi poets Hafiz, Sa'di, Khayyam, Ferdowsi, 'Attar, Rumi and others, writers who call us to a deeper consciousness and who remind us that only love will help us evolve. No book celebrating the richness of Iranian culture could be without them. In keeping with Persian tradition, some of the selections of these poems were made by the contributors opening books by their favorite poets to a random page. This age-old practice has proven that the words found in the poetry offer wisdom or even an anecdote for whatever question or problem the reader or seeker might be experiencing at the time. We encourage you to read this collection in a similar spirit of openness.

It is my hope that the depiction of life in Iran in this anthology will lift you out of this period in history in which we sometimes reduce people and nations to simplistic groupings of good and evil. Love and Pomegranates is a gesture of peace.

I invite you to read the first story in this collection, "The Frangrance of Naan," by Shahrokh Nikfar on loveandpomegranates.com. Shahrokh is a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in Tehran and who returned to his homeland in 2000 for the first time in twenty-one years. I've included an image of him in this post reading from his piece at a recent gathering of intrepid readers and travelers from Spokane, Washington.

Shahrokh hosts a weekly radio program The Persian Hour, KYRS Radio, Spokane, WA. Coming soon on loveandpomegranates.com is a podcast of recent discussion between Shahrokh and myself about the story of how this anthology came to be, its 67 or so contributors and their work.

Meghan Nuttall Sayres is author of a new young adult novel set in 20th century Persia Night Letter published this month by Nortia Press along with a re-issue of Anahita’s Woven Riddle (Abrams, 2006) an ALA Top Ten Best Books YA and a Book Sense/Indie Pick. Her anthology Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran will be released spring 2013. She’d like to thank Rumi and Kabir Helminski for sharing similar thoughts about rubies, as well as PEN American who first published this essay.

Via  The Huffington Post

Art exhibition highlights Molla Nasreddin heritage

by Aynur Jafarova,  AzerNews

Azerbaijan's capital Baku will host the opening of an art exhibition devoted to the heritage of the Molla Nasreddin literary character inspired by 13th century Muslim cleric who was remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes, on June 21.

The exhibition, titled "The value of Molla Nasreddin heritage in the modern world", is being organized by Miras Social Organization in Support of Studying Cultural Heritage and takes place in Baku Art Gallery.

The exhibits at the show, which aims to show the value of Molla Nasreddin heritage in the present-day world, are devoted to the topics of the Molla Nasreddin satirical magazine, which was one of the most remarkable projects in the history of the Azerbaijani press.

The Baku exhibition features works by young painters such as Yaylagul Ramazanova, Emin Elishov, Shahin Guliyev, Matanat Aghazade, Aydan Aghazade, Kanan Mammadov, Anar Shamsiyev, Gurban Orujly, Vugar Gurbanov, Konul Mammadova, Vusala Talibova and others.

The eight-page Molla Nasreddin magazine, which was published in Azerbaijani and occasionally in the Russian language, represented a new stage in the development of national satire and cartoon art. The features and columns of the magazine were discussions, short witty pieces of writing, humorous poems, advertisement and telegrams, satirical stories, anecdotes, cartoons, caricatures, illustrations, etc.

The magazine gathered the most advanced team of Azerbaijani intelligentsia, who published their stories on the magazine's pages under various pen-names. Pictures and caricatures were supplied by artists Oskar Schmerling, Azim Azimzade and Josif Rotter.

The first issue of the magazine was published in Tiflis on April 7, 1906. The picture on the cover of the first publication was a group of Muslims in deep sleep with Molla Nasreddin trying to awake them. "I came for you" is the most popular article of the first publication of the magazine.

The main purpose of the magazine was the struggle with the old world and the fight against colonialism of the imperialist countries, tsarist autocracy and in the East with the despotic regimes in Iran and Turkey as well as satirical depiction of inequality, cultural assimilation, corruption, backward lifestyles and values of the clergy and religious fanatics.

The magazine achieved great popularity not only in the South Caucasus and Russia but across countries of the Near and Middle East as well. It was distributed widely in Iran and Turkey. Molla Nasreddin continued to appear under the Soviet regime. It was published regularly in Baku from late 1922 until early 1931.

The magazine had 748 publications over the period of 25 years.

The significance of the Molla Nasreddin magazine is its role in the development of the critical realist genre in Azerbaijani literature. It influenced similar processes in other literary traditions, primarily in Iran. Iranian cartoon art emerged as a result of publishing Molla Nasreddin in Tabriz in 1921.

Via AzerNews

Persian Influences and Women in Architecture

Gisue Hariri (R) and Mojgan Hariri (L), sisters and co-founders of Hariri & Hariri. Photo Courtesy Asia Society (Karin Kohlberg). 

Interview by Clara Lambert, Asia Society

In the male-dominated field of architecture, Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri have been a complementary force for over 20 years, pushing the boundaries of modern and technically inspired design. The Iran-born sisters came to America and studied architecture at Cornell University in the 1970's. Together they established their New York firm Hariri & Hariri in 1986. They have expanded and redefined the standard definition of architecture by a holistic approach in designing, masterplans, buildings, interiors, furniture, products and, more recently, jewelry and accessories.

The Hariris are often cited as innovators of cutting-edge materials and digital technology that are integrated into futuristic yet organic designs, from luxury residences like the iconic Sagaponac House in Long Island, New York to large-scale multi-use projects like the Sternbrauerei in Salzburg, Austria, which is currently in construction. Their work has been shown at the MOMA, National Building Museum, and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, among other institutions. 

Here, Gisue shares with Asia Society their family experiences, Persian influences, meaningful inspirations and insight.

Before coming to the U.S. for college, you were born and raised in Iran. How did your family and upbringing affect who or where you are today? Was there a cumulative or specific turning point when you realized you wanted to pursue architecture and come to America?

My sister and I are one and a half years apart and grew up in a small Iranian town in the south, attending public schools early on as my father's profession required that we live far in the desert near the oil fields. The desert became both deeply isolating and nurturing. Isolation encouraged our imagination to run wild and develop ideas that a more conventional childhood would have found odd, and we often had to invent our own world, toys and games.

My earliest recollection is when, at the age of 12, I announced to my family that I was going to be an architect. While I was determined to pursue this path, I had only a youthful understanding of what that meant and no realization that one day it would be a way of life, a way of seeing the world, a way of harnessing my past and constructing the future.

We were raised in a family that valued education as a tool necessary for living in the modern world and believed in higher education specially for women. Pursuing college education was encouraged from early on as a means to contribute to the construction of the modern Iran.

How strongly does your cultural heritage inform your approach to architecture, interior and product design? In what ways? 

Growing up in the desert, the environment tends to strip everything down to the essential without diminishing its extraordinary presence and beauty. While outwardly harsh, one intimate with its nature finds sensual lines and magnificent vistas that embolden the senses and a void that is constantly being tested and carved by the fierce winds. We always try to understand the essence of each project and begin our work with original concepts. Sensitive to each environment we build upon, we make sure that each project is simple, efficient and environmentally sustainable.

Iran's rich cultural heritage in arts, music, literature, poetry and sciences — all brought together in its extraordinary architecture — was certainly influential, and it is a long shadow under which I find myself. Every summer we would visit my grandparents in Isfahan. My father's hometown is one of the few places in the world that leaves one with astonishment and awe. It is a city of amazing Persian gardens and magnificent blue-domed mosques and palaces mostly built by Shah Abbas the Great in the 17th century. There are pedestrian bridges like no other in the world and picturesque, organic bazaars, and a host of smaller but exquisite mosques and pleasure pavilions. Isfahan is truly the museum of Persian architecture. The tactility, materiality and use of art and craft throughout our projects, regardless of scale and program, are what we carry within us from the visits to Isfahan.

The use of geometry, craft, technology is apparent in all our projects. Inspired by the renowned Persian polymath figures like Omar Khayyam — a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and poet who wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, and music — we developed our holistic approach to design and architecture.

Sternbrauerei, a luxury residential and multi-use complex in Austria, is currently one of the largest all-encompassing projects Hariri & Hariri has taken on. Would you consider this to be one of your most successful and/or challenging endeavors? 

This project, which we won in an international competition, is important to us not only because we were the winners among the world's best-known architects, such as Souto Moura (Portugal), Snøhetta (Oslo), Kengo Kuma (Tokyo), Yamaguchi (Osaka), Toshiko Mori (NY), Delugan-Meissl (Vienna), Langhof (Berlin), to name a few. This 80-million-dollar mixed-use development also demonstrates our "holistic" philosophy, where we have designed the master plan, the architecture of the six new buildings, renovation of an existing vault, some of the interiors, and the main landscape elements as well.

This project includes 80 luxury apartments, exhibition space, a gallery and lecture hall in the old brewery's underground vaults, a spa and wellness center, a café and restaurant facilities and an underground parking garage. It is neither the scale nor the challenges we confronted that makes our Salzburg project significant. It is this relationship between architecture and nature that we have created, a dialogue and meditative experience we have carved at the edge of the rock wall, which guides and invites the public through the site. For us architecture is more than construction of buildings, it is where our dreams transcend realities of life. It is a commitment that will carry you to places you had never dreamed of and know could exist before you began.

Finally, this project is one of the very few new constructions permitted in the historic city of Salzburg, offering Mozart's birthplace as a destination for the architecture of the 21st century.

What is the inspiration or reasoning behind the faceted crystal-like forms that are incorporated into a lot of your work? 

We have been fascinated by the articulation of abstract and geometric forms and patterns derived from nature, which is also apparent in both Persian architecture and modern architecture in the West. Somehow, as you can imagine, from very early on we have been collecting rocks, studying geological formations and recently crystals.

We have always been interested in the organic relationship among man, nature and architecture. What is interesting to us is not soft, curvilinear nature, but the faceted, edgy, asymmetrical rocks and crystals in nature.

Women and Asian Americans are still a minority in the architecture field. Hariri & Hariri is one of the few successful established firms founded by women. Even if your gender or ethnicity do not define you as architects, do you encounter any inherent challenges being in this profession? Any advice for other women who aspire to careers in your industry? 

I believe women are still minorities in the field of architecture in general, regardless of their ethnicity. When my sister and I were studying at Cornell Architecture School in the late '70s, early '80s, there were very few women studying with us and no women teaching us. There were a very few women practitioners that no one knew. So, my first commitment was to teach and be present in the studios while working simultaneously to get some projects built. We have to nurture and create opportunities for women in architecture, as I truly believe that women have a lot to offer the field of architecture. We need to be mentors and sponsors to younger women architects. According to the Architectural Record essay by Sarah Williams, "men still largely control architecture's higher reaches. And they're more likely to lavish attention on younger men."

My advice to both men and women in positions of influence and awarding projects is to recognize that it is their responsibility to find and recognize women in architecture. The media has a responsibility to publish and introduce the work of women architects to the larger public. The society as whole has a responsibility to create equal opportunities for women architects. Finally, women have a responsibility to support one another rather than competing with one another. Until we respect, recognize, and appreciate women's contribution to the field of architecture we cannot change the boys' club culture that exists globally in architecture.

Asia Society has an upcoming landmark exhibition, Iran Modern, featuring 20th century works by Iranian artists. Today, there's a solid presence of notable Iranian American figures (Shirin Neshat, Christiane Amanpour, Elie Tahari) including yourself. How does the positive exposure of Iranian history, culture and representation in America make you feel? 

We look forward to Iran Modern this fall at the Asia Society. This exhibit will be extremely important as it will exhibit not only the history and wealth of Persian art and culture and modern art in Iran, but it will also bring a positive cultural exposure and juxtaposition against the daily political media coverage showing Iranians as a backward, fanatic, religious people dwelling in the past. It will show the rich culture of Iran, its modern art of the 20th century, and its internationally awarded and respected artists.

As Iranian/American, we both take pride in being part of two amazing cultures simultaneously. We admire figures like Shirin Neshat, Christiane Amanpour, Elie Tahari, among others, for their contribution and solid presence. Art and architecture to us is a global language that connects humanity and brings us all together as one community.


Via Asia Society

Rediscovering the beauty of language

Nima Behnoud gives Persian calligraphy a contemporary twist using vivid colours and emphasising inherent geometric forms

Talisman. Courtesy Gulf News

by Jyoti Kalsi, Gulf News

New York-based Iranian artist Nima Behnoud’s work is inspired by Persian culture and calligraphy. In his first ever exhibition, Behnoud is showcasing a series of silk-screen prints on paper that feature verses from famous poet Rumi, references to Persian history and mythology, pre-Islamic Iranian motifs, calligraphic letters and Islamic arabesque patterns. But the vivid colours he has used, the way he has juxtaposed the different elements, and his emphasis on geometric forms rather than the meaning of the words gives these artworks a contemporary look.

“I have a huge collection of old Iranian and Middle Eastern manuscripts, books, royal seals, stamps and stone carvings obtained from antique stores and flea markets around the world. The writings, motifs and figures in my artworks have been reproduced from these items. But I always try to present the ancient Iranian and Middle Eastern culture in a modern way so that everybody can appreciate its beauty regardless of whether they understand the words and symbols or the philosophy behind them,” Behnoud says.

A striking feature of Behnoud’s work is the beautiful way in which the blues, reds and oranges flow into each other to create a bright background for his layered compositions. The colours are influenced by his work as a fashion designer. In fact, while he has never exhibited his art in public before, his label NimaNY is quite well known around the world. The clothing brand, established in 2004, has been featured in prestigious magazines such as Vogue and Maxim, and his clients include celebrities such as Kevin Spacey, Heidi Klum and Paris Hilton. “The colours look so vibrant because although these artworks are done on handmade paper, instead of ink, I used the same fabric paints here that I use on my garments,” the artist says.

In some of the artworks, Behnoud has merely played with a single calligraphic letter to create fun, pop-art-like compositions. In others ancient motifs such as winged lions, angels, royal seals and fantasy characters from the epic “Shahnameh” are superimposed on a collage of words comprising Rumi’s poetry, excerpts from literary texts and even calligraphers’ practice sheets. “Rumi’s poetry in the background depicts the richness, depth and enduring beauty of my country’s cultural heritage, whereas the symbols on top represent superficial elements that keep changing over the years. For example, in one artwork I have used a Qajar dynasty royal stamp with a very French design to comment on the foreign influence on the cultural fabric of my country during that period. And in another piece, I used the royal seals of kings from various periods in Iranian history to depict the contrast between Iran’s deep cultural heritage and the shallow, egoistic and elitist attitude of those who ruled the country,” Behnoud says. 

The artist is also displaying some of his wearable art pieces such as scarves and ties to highlight the connection between fine art and fashion design. “There is a general feeling that everything about Middle Eastern culture is sacred and should only be represented in a particular way. But I have tried to break away from that with my fashion garments and my artworks. Even if the celebrities who wear my clothes know nothing about Rumi or the ‘Shahnameh’, it is enough for me that they find my representations of my culture beautiful and embrace them. Similarly, my art presents a pop-art version of a very rich culture, making it accessible to everyone,” Behnoud says.

Yellow Pledge. Courtesy Gulf News

Grand Stamp. Courtesy Gulf News

- Jyoti Kalsi is an arts enthusiast based in Dubai.

- “Nima Behnoud: Studio Art” will run at Total Arts gallery at The Courtyard until April 30.

Faceless massses

Iranian artist Shohreh Mehran’s latest exhibition, “Defaced”, features a series of portraits of people she does not know. The identity of the men and women in her beautifully detailed oil paintings is hidden from viewers because their faces are covered by their hands or behind veils. The handcuffs indicate that these “defaced” people are criminals who have been arrested, and their body language suggests that they are hiding their faces in shame.

These paintings are all based on photographs of criminals published in the newspapers in Teheran. Mehran has been collecting such images for the last three years and has reproduced them in her paintings. “I see these images in the media everyday and I wonder why the newspapers publish them despite the faces being hidden. Although I know that these people are criminals, I cannot help feeling some sympathy for them as they face this difficult time,” the artist says.

Mehran’s haunting portrayals convey a collective sense of shame. But they also make us think about whether these people are covering their faces because they are guilty or because they are innocent victims. By creating a permanent record in the form of paintings, of people who find themselves on the wrong side of the law, the artist also questions the premise behind showing the image of a person whose face is not recognisable. And by inviting viewers to contemplate the legality of her own act of appropriating these media images, she forces them to ask whether her subjects have been treated justly. Perhaps her paintings allude to the faceless masses that have to constantly face the terrible consequences of the selfish, egoistic and misguided actions of their shameless leaders and the hidden forces that support and manipulate these leaders.

“Defaced” will run at Etemad gallery, Al Quoz, until April 27.

Via Gulf News

Shahnameh, Re-Imagined: A Colorful New Vision of Old Iranian Folklore

Filmmaker Hamid Rahmanian's forthcoming illustrated tome will bring new, vivid life to the epic tales of the ancient Persian kings.

Courtesy Quantuck Lane Press and The Atlantic

by Steven Heller, The Atlantic

The ancient mythology of Iran is laden with heroic adventures of superhuman champions, magical creatures, heart-wrenching love stories, and centuries-long battles. Ferdowsi's 10th-century text Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), which at 60,000 verses weighs in as the longest epic poems ever written, is a foundation for this mythology, comparable to The Odyssey, Nibelungenlied, and Ramayana.

There has been a long tradition of depicting the stories of Shahnameh, even before Ferdowsi put them into verse. But that tradition reached its zenith in the 17th century and died out in the middle of the 19th. So, for more than 100 years, there has not been an illustrated Shahnameh, except for an occasional drawing of a story here and there.

That will change in May, though, with Quantuck Lane Press's publication of Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, which was produced, designed, and obsessively illustrated over the course of three years by the filmmaker Hamid Rahmanian. The colorful and painstakingly produced tome aims in part to make Persian culture's oldest stories accessible to the Western world—especially to the children of immigrants, for whom these stories may be new.

 

 Courtesy Quantuck Lane Press and The Atlantic

"If you walk through a bookstore here in the US, you can find scores of books on Greek, Egyptian, Northern European, Native American, Chinese, even Pacific Island mythology," Rahmanian tells me in an email. "But there is nothing about Persian mythology. It just doesn't exist. Yet, it's a sophisticated, entertaining, relatable mythology. I wanted to create a book that [my daughter] and other second or third generation Iranian kids growing up outside of Iran could read and enjoy and be proud of to call their own and most importantly, share with the broader world."

To that effect, he says, "this new edition has been trimmed down to make it accessible to the lay reader." Working with editorial director Melissa Hibbard and translator Ahmad Sadri, Rahmanian focused on only two-thirds of Shahnameh, which starts with the beginning of civilization and ends with the death of the main hero, Rostam. He illustrated several plots and themes, including nightmares, dreams, and inner dialogue of the main characters that have not been illustrated before. "I have no idea why, but during the last 1,000 years of illustrating the stories of Shahnameh, no one has ever depicted these themes," he says.

Shahnameh continues to enthrall readers around the globe with its depictions of superhuman heroes, magical birds, heart-wrenching love stories, and fierce battles. Courtesy Hamid Rahmanian and Asia Society

Most of the book's images in its 500 pages are collages or composites of other artworks. Rahmanian created the "panels" in this edition, much like a movie editor or a DJ weaves together different components to create a new work of art. Instead of sampling sounds or frames, he used bits from miniatures and lithographs from different eras, schools, and stories. Every panel contains upwards of 120 elements that were digitally collaged into new illustrations. Little was drawn from scratch.

"Since I didn't have a budget to travel to where the original works were, I had to rely on art books," he says. "I think I bought every book that has been published on the subject of miniatures, lithographs and illuminations from the region." In the end, Rahmanian's library had more than 8,000 pieces of lithographs, miniatures, and illuminations that he would later cut out and recompose.

Inspired by the wealth of imagery he found in different editions of Shahnameh, artist Hamid Rahmanian experimented with bringing together images from different styles and periods. Courtesy Hamid Rahmanian and Asia Society

Amazingly, except for natural elements such as clouds, rocks, flowers, and cliffs, there are very few elements that repeat. "I wanted every page to be a surprise," he says. "I wanted the reader to explore each illustration with a sense of newness. I felt that if I used the same detail more than once, the element of surprise would be less, and that the reader might get bored."

As a child in Iran, Rahmanian grew up with Shahnameh and knew a few of the main stories but was not familiar with most of the book. He recalls being intimidated by the mass of the book. What's more, the stories are a bit mature for younger kids, but it's a book full of fairy tales, magical creatures and epic battles and the images are a feast for the eyes at any age.

"I definitely made this with my own daughter in mind," he says. "She's only one year old now but I plan to read this to her as she gets a little older."

 Courtesy Quantuck Lane Press and The Atlantic

Rahmanian admits the past three years working on the book was a combination of hard struggle and a lot of tedious labor: "I developed a mantra about halfway through the work and it was: 'Hamid, shut up and work!' You might laugh at this but the weight of the project was so heavy that there were moments when I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel."

But he adds it was nonetheless important that "this project highlight a different dimension of the Iranian culture to counter the popular images that prevail these days. Iran is misunderstood and vilified in those images. I wanted to underline the depth, the diversity and the universally of my culture. So, now that I look back I feel the project was well worth all those hardships."

Composed by the poet Ferdowsi between 980 and 1010, the work tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran, beginning at the time of the mythic creation through the Arab invasion of the seventh century. Courtesy Hamid Rahmanian and Asia Society

Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings is the great epic of Persia, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between 980 and 1010. It tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran, beginning at the time of the mythic creation through the Arab invasion of the seventh century. Grieved by the fall of the Persian empire, Ferdowsi sought to create a work that would capture the memory, culture and nostalgia of the golden days of Persia. A mix of mythology and history, packed with stories of triumph and courage, failure and cruelty, love and war, Shahnameh can only be compared to works such as Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, Homer’s Odyssey or Dante's Divine Comedy.

 Courtesy Hamid Rahmanian and Asia Society

Hamid Rahmanian is an award-winning filmmaker and graphic artist based in New York City. Inspired by the wealth of imagery he found in different editions of Shahnameh, Rahmanian experimented with bringing together images from different styles and periods. The work grew and grew, different characters came to life, and 100,000 hours of work later, he had created an entirely new illustrated edition of the classic text. Culled from thousands of illustrated manuscripts, lithographs and miniatures dating from the 14th to 19th centuries, each page is a collage of traditional forms transformed into a wholly new work that Sheila Canby, Curator of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has dubbed "a Shahnameh for the digital age." Rahmanian's artwork is complemented, meanwhile, by a new English prose translation of Ferdowsi's verse by Ahmad Sadri, James P. Gorter Chair of Islamic World Studies at Lake Forest College.


Via The Atlantic and Asia Society

Whispers of Love

One man’s quest to translate the great poetry of Persia.

Hafez, Iran’s ubiquitous poet, as depicted in 16th Century painting by Sultan Muhammad. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum Of Art/President And Fellows Of Harvard College and The Daily Beast

by Brad Gooch, The Daily Beast

When Dick Davis, the preeminent translator of Persian poetry of our time, was a boy in Portsmouth, England, in the 1950s, he found on his parents’ bookshelf a copy of Edward FitzGerald’s swooning Victorian translations of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Its presence was not so unusual, as those verses (“A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou”) had set off a minor craze. If an English middle-class family owned just three books, along with the Bible and Shakespeare would be FitzGerald. “It was a kind of universal badge of culture,” Davis jokes. Yet he absorbed so much of what he later described as “the candied death-wish of FitzGerald” that he knew most by heart. Instead of anxiety of influence, he experienced an opiated hit of influence.

Teleport forward 60 years, and Dick Davis, white-haired, spectacled professor emeritus of Persian at the Ohio State University and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, is still adding tile by colored tile to a busy mosaic of translation that former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia insists is the “most remarkable poetic translation project in the last 20 years.” He began with epics the equal of The Iliad in Persian civilization—the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, and The Conference of the Birds, Attar’s flight of Sufi fancy about various birds in search of the eternally elusive Bird of Birds. Now Davis has succeeded at the enigmatic 14th-century poet Hafez, along with his contemporaries female poet Jahan Malek Khatun and dirty-minded Obayd, in Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz. Hafez is so beloved in Iran that cabdrivers recite his lyrics by heart and families at holidays tell fortunes by opening to random lines of his poems—attesting to both their seductive beauty and their Sphinx-like ambiguity. Davis reminds us by folding in these two other court poets that Shiraz in Hafez’s lifetime was a poetry genius cluster.

Davis and his wife, Afkham Darbandi, met in Iran when he went to a hospital. Courtesy of Mage Publishers and The Daily Beast

Not only Davis’s career track, but his entire life, as he tells the tale, has a hint of FitzGerald’s kismet—“The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,/Moves on”—until he found his way to Iran and its ancient language. The author of eight of his own books of poems (in unfashionable meter and rhyme), in “A Letter to Omar” he asks, “Was it for you I answered that advertisement?” The want ad, for an English instructor in Tehran, caught Davis’s eye after Cambridge, where as an undergrad he befriended the aged novelist E.M. Forster, who filled his head with the glories of Persia’s Mogul culture. In 1970, Davis arrived in Iran to teach at the University of Tehran. A year later, he met his wife, Afkham Darbandi, an Iranian who arranged for a blood transfusion when he arrived in a hospital emergency room. “A doctor said to me, ‘You see that nurse? She saved your life,’” recalls Davis. “That was worth following up.”

Since fleeing Iran in 1979, Davis has not returned for fear of spoiling his happy memories. Courtesy Abbas/Magnum and The Daily Beast

Eight years into his romance with both his wife and the Persian language, after living full time in Tehran, the Islamic Revolution of 1978–79 drew a bright red line between past and future. At first he and his wife “expected things to blow over,” says Davis. “It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Argo. The revolutionary crowds were actually very sympathetic to Westerners. I went to demonstrations, and I never felt in any danger. They would say, ‘Tell your people what we are doing!’ This was before the hostages, and there was a kind of euphoria about it all.” Soon, though, Tehran was under martial law, the streets full of tanks, with shooting. As they lived in a third-floor apartment with big windows on Avenue Villa, a main boulevard, they moved in with Indian friends from England on a hidden narrow backstreet, and they devised an exit strategy.

By the time the Davises escaped Iran in November, shortly before the shah’s departure in January 1979, the tick of drama was much more Argo. One of Davis’s students worked at the airport and helped him get plane tickets. Another worked at the National Bank, where all their savings were frozen: “I mentioned this to my student, who said, ‘If you trust me, Mr. Davis, give me your money, and when you get to England, it will be in your bank.’ Indeed every cent of it was there.” While his wife returns every few years to visit family, Davis has not. “I am reluctant to go back,” he explains. “I had students who were killed in the revolution. I can remember faces of people I know were killed, so that gives me an extremely bitter feeling. I met my wife there and found my intellectual passion for the rest of my life. When my wife comes back, she cries for two weeks at the dreadful changes. I have this very positive image of Iran. I don’t want that spoiled.”

From Iran With Love

A selection of poems excerpted from ‘Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz.’ 

My love’s for pretty faces,
     For heart-bewitching hair;
I’m crazy for good wine,
     A languorous, drunk stare ...

In love there’s no escaping
     The burning of desire;
I stand here like a candle –
     Don’t scare me with your fire.

I am a man from heaven,
     But on this path I see
My love of youth and beauty
     Have made a slave of me.

If Fate will help me, I
     Will take myself elsewhere –
My bed will be swept clean
     By some sweet houri’s hair.

Shiraz is like a mine
     Of ruby lips, a store
Of loveliness ... and I’m
     A jeweler who’s dirt-poor.

I’ve seen so many drunk
     Eyes in this town, I think
I’m drunk, although I swear
     I’ve had no wine to drink.

You asked me to explain
     Eternity for you –
Well certainly, when I
     Have downed a drink or two.

Hafez, my nature’s like
     A hopeful bride, but I
Lack mirrors to array
     Myself – that’s why I sigh.

—Hafez

How long will you be like
     A cypress tree,
And lean your lovely head
     Away from me?

Sorrow is all you’ve ever
     Brought to me;
I will not ask how long
     I am to be

The knocker on your door
     You do not see,
The iron ring you pass
     Obliviously.

My pillow’s made of absence –
     While you are free
To taste another’s love,
     Forgetting me.

If I could follow your
     Curls’ scent I’d see
A way to let their night
     Envelop me;

Since you have left me to
     This misery,
Tears, and a heart on fire
     Are all of me.

I don’t deserve you, but
    I long to see
The sunlight of your face
     Shine here, for me.

Although you’ve shown that you
     Don’t care for me,
My soul still wishes you
     Prosperity.

—Jahan Khatun

Your face’s absence leaves mine waxy-white,
                                             like a candle;
How long will my tears drip, blearing my sight,
                                             like a candle?
You sleep, and on your pillow I lie broken,
                                             self-consumed,
Awake and weeping till the morning light,
                                             like a candle.

—Jahan Khatun

I’m off to stroll through the bazaar – and there
I’ll see what can be flushed out from its lair;
I’ll lure a rent-boy home here, or a whore;
One of the two – either will do – I don’t care.

—Obayd-e Zakani

From Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz, Mage Publishers. Copyright 2013 by Dick Davis.

 

Brad Gooch is a professor of english at William Paterson University in New Jersey. His latest book is Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor

Via Brad Gooch

Call to Arms

Only you, O Iranian woman, have remained in bonds of wretchedness, misfortune, and cruelty; if you want these bonds broken, grasp the skirt of obstinacy - Forough Farrokhzad, Call to Arms

Mona Shomali and Haleh Jamali Explore Female Iranian Identity in a Joint Exhibition

by Joobin Bekhrad, REORIENT

Opening February 19^th at Philadelphia’s Asian Arts Initiative is That Person Who is Your Creation, an exhibition of the works of two female Iranian artists, Mona Shomali, and Haleh Jamali. A collaboration between From the Mouth of the Lion, Sara Zia Ebrahimi’s US-based non-profit organisation dedicated to showcasing the works of emerging Iranian artists in the diaspora born on the cusp of the ’79 Islamic Revolution and artclvb, an online platform for contemporary Middle Eastern art, the exhibition will feature five paintings from Shomali’s Naked Folklore series, and two video installations by Jamali.

Taking its title from Call to Arms, a poem by the late Iranian poet (and director) Forough Farrokhzad (1935 – 1967), the exhibition explores the subject of female identity from the perspective of two Iranian women living in the West. Through the medium of painting and film, Shomali, an artist born and raised in the United States, and Scotland-based Jamali, curator of the Edinburgh Iranian Festival, examine what it means to be an Iranian woman, challenging both Eastern and Western perceptions and notions in the process.

Last week, I talked to Mona, Haleh, and Sara about some of the ideas and themes of the exhibition, the works on display, and naturally, the connection with Forough Farrokhzad.

Despite having passed away at an incredibly young age, leaving behind a relatively small body of work, Farrokhzad’s influence and impact on Iranian artists of all mediums – female artists in particular – has been immense. How, nearly 50 years after her death, has Farrokhzad inspired you as artists?

Mona: When I was a teenager, my mom talked quite a bit about how sexuality was different for women in America than it was for her in Iran. For example, she told me that no one ever said ‘vagina’ in front of her when she was younger, and she didn’t really know what the proper word was in Farsi, because it was so often referred to as ‘down there’. She made it seem as if Iranian women between the 50s and 70s were dispossessed of their own bodies. She was the first person to tell me about Farrokhzad. Her description of the poems was special, because she believed they were the first widely-read poems where an Iranian woman was talking about her own sensuality and sensual feelings in a way she saw fit for herself. Her excitement over Farrokhzad’s poetry was palpable, as if it were something rare and exotic, and she saw Farrokhzad as taking a stand and owning her sexuality in a way that hadn’t been done before. I continued to read Farrokhzad’s poetry in college when I took a Farsi class and studied with a Farsi tutor. I gained a deeper appreciation for her when I realised she was not just a pioneer when it came to sensuality, but also that her criticism of Iranian culture was very illuminating and truthful.

Haleh: I think that throughout her work she remained honest to her feelings, and her poems are very personal records of that. I believe her work is timeless; they’re not really particular to a certain era or period, and you feel like they could have been written yesterday. What is interesting about her poetry for me is her detailed focus on women’s struggles, and many of the issues they faced, and continue to face. You can really see the influence of her work in one of my video installations, Someone Who is Not Like Anyone Else, which again refers to another one of Farrokhzad’s poems.

Mona, a large body of your work deals with the identity issues you have faced as a female Iranian-American, as well as the preconceived notions surrounding Iranian women in the West. You were born in the States during the year of the Islamic Revolution, and grew up in a time of intense political hostility between your country of birth and your ancestral homeland, let alone experiencing the aftermath of 9/11 first-hand in New York City. How has being raised in America affected your Iranian identity and your self-perception as an Iranian woman? How have you been able to reconcile these two facets (i.e. Iranian and American) of your identity?

Mona: To begin with, I am happy to see that you have described Iranian-American identity as being very distinct from Iranian identity; this is not always recognised in the literature and art of the diaspora. There is a lot of artwork dealing with Iranian identity, but much less has been devoted to the identity of Iranians coming to age in the West. My artwork is very much about the inner conflicts, clashes, contrasts, hostilities, judgements, and juxtapositions of ‘being’ both cultures at once – both American and Iranian – and the inherent struggle that ensues when one ideology is pitted against another. As an artist, I try to explore the wounds that come from that inner battle within oneself – when these two cultures cannot see ‘eye-to-eye’.

It is important to distinguish the hybrid Iranian-American (or the Iranian-British, Iranian-Canadian, Iranian-French, etc.), because they have different concerns and issues than the ‘fish-out-of-water’ Iranian immigrant. The immigrant can distinguish which culture is of ‘origin’, and which is of ‘choice’, whereas the first-generation hybrid Iranian-American born outside Iran, or who left at a very young age has more difficulty distinguishing their country of origin and ancestry, on both a conscious and subconscious level. Both cultures are at once ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, ‘familiar’ and ‘unfamiliar’, causing them to inhabit a space in between.

Sometimes we don’t feel Iranian enough. Sometimes we don’t feel American enough. We have been raised in a situation where there are two models of identity – a dichotomy of two countries of origin that are often at a cultural war with each other. We try to find a comfortable place between the two paradigms. It can be hard to know with whom we feel we belong, especially when we have chosen (not always consciously) the parts of our Iranian identity we want to keep and hold on to, and the parts we want to discard. Sometimes we want to want to be a part of the Iranian family ‘tribe’, and sometimes, we don’t. Sometimes, we want to be sensual and fiercely independent, and pursue careers against the advice, wishes, and gossip of the old-fashioned ‘clan’. We exercise our American choice to go against certain social pressures, parameters, and formal rules, and suddenly, we feel we are betraying our ‘Iranianness’, as dictated by our community.

What was it like growing up in this space ‘in between’, as you put it?

Mona: My own Iranian-American friends and I affectionately talk about common things our parents and the community at large would try to artificially differentiate for us by way of discouragement, and by trying to keep us ‘in line’, saying things like, ‘you are being so American right now’, ‘no Iranian would ever do that’, or ‘Iranians would be ashamed of you if they know you did such-and-such’. The pioneer immigrant generation refuses to claim responsibility for the behaviour of Iranian-Americans doing things they don’t consider to be truly ‘Iranian’, based on a rigid categorisation and ideology of purity. The original Iranian immigrant community that came to the West assumed their children would take from American and Iranian culture the same things they themselves did, and that was just not realistic. If you grew up like I did – as a 10 year-old girl with hairy sideburns and eyebrows who took khoresht to school in Tupperware, and had her friends ask her what language her parents spoke – you can attest to the reality that we didn’t feel ‘American’, simply because we were somewhat removed from our parents’ experience of being Iranian.

Of course, not every Iranian-American sees eye-to-eye, and we don’t think like a single organism, largely because we have all taken different parts of our ‘mother culture’, and have matched them to elements of American culture in a way that is relevant, or that works for our own unique experiences. The thing is, those of us occupying this ‘space’ in between can recognise each other, because we are deciding for ourselves the how and what to be of each culture. We recognise each other because we are deciding and choosing how to make this work. It is very important for us to have our own narrative space where we can find self-love and self-acceptance, and claim the constructs of our own identities that we understand to be true and meaningful.

Stills from Haleh Jamali’s ‘Someone Who is Not Like Anyone’. Courtesy REORIENT

Haleh, while Mona’s works largely depict the nude female form, your video installations explore the role of clothing in the understanding of the Iranian female self. To what degree do clothing regulations and norms in Iran play in the constructed notion of the Iranian woman, both in Iran and in the West? As well, how would you say this has changed throughout Iranian history?

Haleh: Someone Who is Not Like Anyone explores the depth of female identity that is primarily based on their appearance, and their different types of clothing. I began this project in a quest for the understanding of the identity of immigrants in a multicultural society, based on the assumption that identity can be made ‘fluid’ by changes in clothing and lifestyle, especially in attempts to integrate into a new society.

What people in the West think about Iran is based on what they see in the media; they think, like in certain cases in Afghanistan and some Arab countries, that we walk around shrouded all the time. People continually ask me if, for instance, if Iranians have to wear the veil, which they don’t. Of course, before the Revolution, the situation was different, as you had a lot of foreigners living in and travelling to Iran, and naturally, they had a much clearer picture of things, and saw that a lot of us actually didn’t even wear the hejab, let alone the veil!

Your video installations deal with two particular pieces of clothing – the chador, and the hejab. What do they represent to you? How do you feel about the notion – often held by both Iranians and Westerners – that they are symbols of oppression and submission?

Haleh: I think any form of clothing can be a symbol of oppression if people are forced to wear it, but as long as the choice is personal, there’s no issue; it depends on the situation, really. For example, the veil exists in the West (in wedding ceremonies, for instance), although it is used in an entirely different way.

In Departure, I’ve explored the relationship between women and fabric, particularly the shapes and forms created by the chador and the invisible gaze of veiled women. Here, the performer uses fabric as a symbol to depict the struggles, and sometimes the frustrations of individuals whose identities have been disguised. The fabric can be anything – a fake persona, an ideology; it represents something that we want to rid ourselves of. The performer in the video tries to overcome her frustrations and ultimately, get rid of the fabric and reveal her true identity. I didn’t want to limit myself just to the use of the chador here, though. I showed the piece to a Colombian friend of mine recently, and she didn’t even make the Middle Eastern connection – she thought the woman was trying to escape a bubble.

Do you think Farrokhzad’s ‘call to arms’ is limited to an Iranian/Middle Eastern context, or is hers a universal declaration? What does she have to say to Western audiences? What, ultimately, is the ‘message’ of this exhibition?

Mona: Farrokhzad began to deconstruct gender expectations in Iran, and I think we can universally explore these much more than we have done so far. It appears that in every culture, there are certain prescribed ways of being a woman and a man. There are gender expectations that vary to the degree of how traditional or contemporary one chooses to interpret their culture of origin. The idea of struggling with gender expectations is a very contemporary issue, and we assume that Western culture has a different belief at its core, despite the similarities. I believe that we are all on a continuum of interpretation when it comes to spiritual/cultural mythologies and creation myths, and that it is less about the stories and ‘rules’ of culture, and more about how often we revisit and break down previously held expectations.

Sara: One of my hopes for audiences viewing this exhibition is to widen the spectrum of representation of what it means to be a woman of Iranian descent. White people in America are afforded a wide spectrum of representation. All of us, no matter what race we belong to, are trained by the media to believe that white people can be nerds, artists, engineers, rich, poor, shy, outgoing, etc. You get the idea. But the rest of us as marginalised groups are not given that range, and our representations are narrow, and as a result, often very stereotyped. The reality is that every racial group has the counter-culturists, the conservatives, and the various subctultures; there’s no one way to be ‘Latino’ or ‘Iranian’, even though the media tries to convince us otherwise, and many of us buy into that and recreate that in our communities. In the West, our reference points have been women in chadors and the ‘Persian Princesses’ of Los Angeles. I see this exhibition as part of a step in another direction. The issues that Haleh and Mona are exploring add dimension to otherwise flat representations of female Iranian artists in the diaspora.

That Person Who is Your Creation runs through April 26, 2013 at the Asian Arts Initiative

Via REORIENT

The Iranian Dream of Emigration

Can a novel in which nothing is said about politics and which does not focus on society as a whole still have a political dimension? Having read Fariba Vafi's novel, My Bird, the answer is most certainly "yes".

by Volker Kaminski, Qantara.de

It is only on a superficial level that Fariba Vafi restricts herself to the day-to-day problems of the female protagonist, to the same old difficulties faced by this mother of two, to the marital quarrels with her husband. Right from the opening chapter, the seemingly naive narrative contains a subtext that runs through the whole microcosm described in the novel and brings it vibrantly to life.

A young Iranian woman, who remains nameless throughout the story, tells of the residential area in an equally nameless large Iranian city to which she and her husband and children have moved. Everything is new and strange to her. The book opens with the sentence: "This is the People's Republic of China." In reality, however, the woman has never been to China; it is just the way she imagines China to be: loud, confusing, and "full of people". However, the comparison with China (and two pages later with India) is anything but coincidental.

A huge, insatiable desire

As exotically distant as these lands seem to her, she feels equally foreign and at the same time heteronomous in her role as mother and wife. Inside, she feels a huge, insatiable desire – a desire for freedom – that ultimately destroys her marriage.

Because of the quiet, restrained way in which the story is told, the reader initially has the sensation of observing the family's conflicts through the wrong end of a telescope. Events like the death of the father and the loneliness of the mother are related almost as asides. Moreover, while the sisters' regular visits and the way they sit together create the impression of happy families, appearances are deceiving; in reality, the world from which the narrator comes is a world full of violence and horror.

She grew up filled "with a thousand fears", the permanent fear of being abused by her uncle and the fear of the frequent punishments meted out to her as a child when she was forced to sit alone in the dark cellar. The death of her father was also a traumatic experience for her. The old man, who was suffering from dementia, was brought down to the cellar on his bed, where his daughter heard him wailing and crying four hours on end without anyone paying him the least bit of attention.

Fariba Vafi has been praised for decribing the normalcy of everyday life in Iran in a subtle, quite and convincing manner. "The seemingly naive narrative contains a subtext that runs through the whole microcosm described in the novel and brings it vibrantly to life," Volker Kaminski writes. Image courtesy of Qantara.de

The young woman wants to feel like an independent individual; she no longer wants to bear the fear, accept the coercion and cling to her family and her husband in her helplessness. But this goal seems out of reach. Her plan fails at an early stage because she and her husband, Amir, cannot agree about their future together. Amir is obsessed with the idea of emigrating to Canada. A future in Iran seems unimaginable to him.

"If we stay here, nothing will change," he declares emphatically. To his wife, he says: "If you stay here, you will turn bitter. There is no future here for you; neither for you, nor for the children." As clear as Amir's assessment of the situation sounds, there is little he can do to implement his plans. His dream of emigration remains just that: a lasting dream. Amir seems like a "migratory bird forced to live in a cage." Every now and then, he shoulders his rucksack and sets off on a trip, leaving his wife and children alone behind. He always comes back after a while, rarely having gotten any further than Baku.

Emigration as an Iranian "chimera"

Using simple means and memorable, original metaphors, the novel describes a reality that reflects the day-to-day reality of life in contemporary Iran.

In an essay-like afterword, which was written by the German-Iranian author SAID, the dream of emigration is described as a widespread "chimera" in modern-day Iran. SAID writes that "five million Iranians (have) left the country since the Islamic Revolution – legally or illegally – driven by the hunger for a better country, for a better life."

But many have to stay and come to terms with the situation, as, incidentally, does the author herself, who to this day lives in Tehran with her family. My Bird is Fariba Vafi's first novel. It was published in Iran in 2002 and received a number of international awards.

Through the vehicle of the novel's main protagonist, she describes a struggle for liberation that a young woman has to put up both for herself in private and yet also symbolically for many others. The fact that she cannot move away and is confronted by the rules of society, which are imposed by men, is something that the protagonist has to accept on a daily basis.

However, the bird in the title of the book is like a lodestar in the life of the young Iranian woman; she has to learn to lose her fear of the "shadows and spirits" around her und take the liberty of going out and making the world her own, which she actually does in the final chapter of the novel.

When she does, she leaves an incredulous husband behind, whom she has not loved for some time, and waves goodbye to her children, who are standing at the window watching her.

The tone of the novel is ironic throughout; a tone in which everything seems possible, yet nothing arbitrary. The images selected by the author are clear and vivid. The outlines of the life in which the young woman initially seems to be trapped appear clear and precise: it is a life between kitchen and cellar, between husband and children, and all the time, she is besieged by feelings of not being able to cope.

But the woman gradually learns to fight for and obtain small freedoms. Even places that previously filled her with dread lose their horror.

"I like the cellar," she says at the end of the novel. "I sometimes go back there ... For some time now, I have understood that I always carry a cellar around with me."

Using such a simple, yet accurate phrase as this, it is possible to give expression to what goes on inside a changing person who does not give up the fight for emancipation, even though it may initially seem like a lost cause.


Fariba Vafi "Parande-ye-man" (My Bird), was awarded the Iranian "Yalda" Literary Prize and the "Qolshiri" Prize in 2002. The English translation was published in 2009.

Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de


The English version of "My Bird" was published by Syracuse University Press in 2009.

Via Qantara.de