Self-Portraits & Daily Objects

Haptic Experience Designer/ Artistic Research

Client

Self-employed

Sector

My Role

Project Time

Art, Research, Design

Designing sculptures from conception, visualization and implementation

3 years

Project Overview

Developing an idea of symbolizing memories in daily objects in 2015. I perceive the concept of touch as the opening of exploring inside that accelerates a deeper understanding of oneself. The objects of ritual are of greater importance than the abstract reality inside it. They are the object that provides a moment to touch yourself.

My Contributions

I created a series of self-portraits from Raku Ceramic titled "Nostalgia: Self-Portraits and Daily Objects" with more than 15 sculptures. Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna selected it for presentation at the First International Festival of Schools of Art and Design (FISAD, 2015) in Turin, Italy. It was exhibited in Arte laguna world online in Venice in 2020.

After three years of parental leave, I continued the project and created five pieces in 2019. The series's last two transitional pieces opened new doors and improved my art significantly. The work No. 9- Of a Series of Self-portraits (the bra) manifests my concern as a woman and my positionality in what I call nuanced feminism that validates neglected and marginalized feminine outlooks, stories, and experiences that differ across individuals. In other words, nuanced feminism resists the homogeneity of readings. This concern is mirrored in my designs.

A Series of Self-Portraits
in 2019

No. 9- Of a Series of Self-portraits (the bra)

Jan 2019 — Jan 2020

A Zarih, a latticework burial chamber with a large cubical or rectangular metal structure, encloses a grave in a mosque or Islamic shrine. The intimate haptic experience and the visual aesthetic pleasure of Zarih call the inner journey of the pilgrim. Touching Zarih is a critical aspect of religious rituals through which pilgrims anticipate fulfilling their spiritual and materialistic wishes. Zarih, as a symbolic spiritual object, is believed to interconnect the body as the materiality of the self to the spiritual experience.

In Zarih, I perceive the concept of touch as the commencement of exploring inside that accelerates a deeper understanding of oneself. By touching Zarih, you feel something stirs deep down inside your soul. Nevertheless, it prevents you from reaching the object of your desire. As a Shiʿite Islam visual element, Zarih symbolizes Imam's sacred essence restricted by the sacred distance. It implies that it is not about touching a sacred essence presented by a figure, but it is about you touching yourself as the essence of the universe. What happens in the ritual is nothing outside a person; it is a journey inside. Zarih, though posing an obstacle, is of greater importance than the abstract reality inside it. It is the object that provides a moment to touch yourself.