Too Much to Carry, a two-person exhibition with Mary Coss, at the Vestibule, Seattle, WA, Exhibition Date: September 7 - October 5, 2024
This body of work is informed by the experience of moving between two cultures and places — unpacking both physically and emotionally while navigating feelings of longing and belonging. It recalls sorting through mementos when things are out of place and in the process of finding their place.
The work incorporates ordinary objects and materials of daily life that transport, hold, protect, and store our keepsakes, belongings, and memories. Empty, detached photo frames cast in cement echo the effort to carry and piece together the fragments of the past and integrate them into the present. Childhood photographs framed with cement are placed in storage, showing part of the complete picture and keeping the whole image obscure. Motifs and designs from historical architectural sites in Iran are cut into the frame corner protectors, marking impersonal and mundane materials with a sense of place. The work reflects on the constant construction, deconstruction, and fragmentation of memory and identity through time and places.
FROM: TO: | :فرستنده: گیرنده, Solo Exhibition, Exhibition date: April 21- June 3, 2023, Paragon Arts Gallery, PCC Cascade Campus, Portland, OR
FROM:TO: | :فرستنده: گیرنده is informed by my experience of being in a transition state, living in between two cultures and places: the labor of adapting to one while living far off from another. Employing mundane objects and materials, this body of work explores concepts of home, memory, migration, and identity in relation to photographs and images. The works feature connections through mediated communication—such as screens, shipping boxes, and handwritten notes — where bodies, memories, and places unite across boundaries and distances. This becomes a reflection on a personal yet collective experience.
