I was born in the summer of 1981 in Tehran, Iran. 1981 is two years after the Islamic Revolution of Iran. 1981 is a year after the beginning of eight years of war between Iran and Iraq. 1981 is seven years before the mass execution of Iranian political prisoners. I was born in 1981 in Tehran, Iran, as a woman-to-be. And I left the country when I was 25. My experiences with this history—and the imprint those experiences have left on my body—form the basis of my artistic work and my research into surveillance, trauma, memory, and belonging in the mental and material spaces we inhabit. I did not see the revolution, but its texture is projected on my body, on my mind. I grew up during the war, and my body carries the wreckage of those years. I remember the mass execution of political prisoners, and my soul holds the feeling of hundreds of bullet holes in remembrance of them. Women’s suppression, though, was the most profound way in which the texture of revolution left its imprint on my body, and the boldest spaces that resonate across my memories are the ones attached to my memories of womanhood. My body became an extension of Iran, and it traveled with me over the seas. After immigrating to Canada, my factual perceptions of my home country narrowed to the memories I have and the news I receive on an everyday basis. My current practice’s primary focus is to recognize space, displacement, and memory in diverse aspects of human identity and social relations.

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Photo by Negar Vahedi