Thoughts arising …
..that came out of the launch evening of the shape of things last month and I have been so busy making that I haven’t had the chance to write them down since.
A question asked at the launch by Raimi Gdamosi, which I am grateful for as it brought up a lot for me …something like- ‘in the face of the diverse practices of the artists on the panel (ie the 8 Shape..artists), are Non-European makers always going to be determined by their ostensible Otherness?’
I have a discomfort around the focus on Otherness. I fear it can be limiting in its entrenchment in a definition of Self within a particular cultural terrain. I understand that it has been and continues to be useful, essential even, in the face of erasure, where there is a question of survival of one’s culture in the balance through migration, displacement etc. But I don’t come from that kind of background, I only experienced the Iranian Revolution second-hand, through the lives of our relatives who fled and came to live with us as I was growing up in suburban Tunbridge Wells.. When I visited Iran in 1992 and 1998 I was warmly welcomed like a guest, a novelty, the beloved daughter of my now legendary mother.
When I state I am a British –Iranian artist, I am acknowledging my sources, not underlining my otherness.
Otherness…in contrast to what ? to what has been a white mainstream, but is no longer, because it is all being beautifully mixed up…???.I am second generation, hybrid, mongrel….. so not Iranian enough to be an Iranian artist and invited to that party, but somewhere in between, enjoying the new colours I can weave on a collective cloth that is so interwoven with ‘other’ influences it is impossible to see where one thread finishes and another begins. And so, the emphasis on otherness, on separateness, is for me not always a concern. Finding the universal through the personal is what I am seeking. Despite this I am aware that I use an approach in my work that draws very closely on my Iranian heritage – the metaphor of textile and its aesthetic, the desire to mourn and self-disclose on a mass scale and connect with masses of people I may never meet (a tradition maintained these days by Iranian bloggers, who have the added element of risk and survival to contend with). The use of poetic language, of communal rituals that are intended to create connection and self-reflection…
So it seems right to show that these are rooted in someplace other than the South East of England. And for that reason I embrace the chance to highlight this through the shape of things. And I truly hope that The Gifts will transcend the biographical material it is rooted in and strike a universal note to those who come …
