Sara Rahbar
Your Fragrance Faded And Left With The Wind

At the heart of the work of Sara Rahbar is the question of identity, as experienced by an individual comparing the memory of her homeland, Iran, with that of the land where she grew up, the United States. From leaving Tehran, forced out as a child with her family by the events of the Revolution and the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, to the family’s arrival in New York, the artist explores the nature of belonging or attachment to a given territory.

Using the American flag as a model, Rahbar covers it with textiles and materials – embroideries, ribbons, pompons, medals, etc. – reflecting her Persian and, more generally, Middle Eastern heritage. The traditional materials that she collects on her travels from New York to Tehran constitute the essential elements of a body of work based on the principle of deconstruction/reconstruction. Here, the stripes of the flag are enriched by dense, rich and colourful material, while the stars representing the American states become covered with calligraphic writing.

This Farsi writing, which the artist renders illegible, affords barely a glimpse of the name Imam Hussein, that of the 7th-century martyr considered a descendent of the prophet Muhammad and of the ancient kings of Persia, who was killed by the powerful army of the Omeyyades. As a supreme symbol of the struggle against tyranny and injustice, Imam Hussein has inspired many revolts and revolutions in the course of Persian history. Revered through the centuries by Shiite Muslims, here his name is conjoined with the American flag in what seem to indicate confusion or a loss of meaning.

Thus the symbol of a religion cohabits with the symbol of a nation: both are sacred. They cohabit in a new composition that organises the confrontation between two countries that are opposed in every way: Iran and the United States, but whose symbols fade here, as hinted in the title, giving way to a vision of a humanity capable of living and joining together in spite of all its differences.

Vérane Pina
Translated by Charles Penwarden