“This world here, that world beyond این سو جهان، آن سو جهان”
I sit upon the threshold.” “بنشسته من بر آستان
- Rumi
Emergence In-Between Series
آفرینش در میانه
Uprootedness
بی ریشگی
Termeh Fabric, Termeh Fabric Threads, 2024
In the performance/installation “Uprootedness,” I deconstruct Termeh, unraveling its threads and carefully reshaping them into cypress tree patterns on the floor. This act of deconstruction and reconstruction mirrors my experience as an immigrant—navigating the tension between rootedness and the disintegration of my Iranian roots. It illustrates the fragile balance between preserving tradition and reconstructing a new identity, while the cypress tree motif symbolizes resilience in the act of cultural survival. The square form of the fabric, traditionally symbolizing land and territory, dissolves into an unstable landscape the audience can walk through and destroy again, navigating my dual identities of past and present.
I Sit Upon a Threshold
بنشسته من بر آستان
70 inches, Recycled Fiber, “Termeh” Fabric, 2024
In my work, “I Sit Upon a Threshold,” a half-cypress tree made of recycled fiber is suspended in space above a square Termeh fabric. Its form, inspired by the Persian architectural dome—rooted in the earth and reaching toward the sky—symbolizes life, eternity, and humanity’s position between material and spiritual worlds. It turns eternally on the threshold between existence and nonexistence, timelessness and time, and inside and outside worlds. The dual meaning of the cypress tree also becomes a metaphor for my immigrant experience, straddling two worlds between past and present, belonging and displacement.
