Woven

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In Iran, carpet weaving by women is an ancient and ongoing art-form that encompasses their emotions, creativity, skill, and culture., lives. Carpets represent their pride. While Women continue to play a crucial role in the carpet industry [and in  society] they still encounter gender inequalities. Carpet symbolizes femininity, patience, and struggle. My work indicates each individual female burdensome and resistant.

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I am interested in physical and emotional involvement of women in the craft. Hard-working and patience developed from it are inseparable, and these become the identities of them. The process of carpet weaving is where their toil is embedded. It also indicates  the strength in Iranian women. In my artwork, I aim to weave my own rug, in which I express feelings of my own. The repetitive labor is an outlet for my [and perhaps their] anxiousness and anger, and the obsessive action is where I release these emotions. The use of natural material in my work symbolizes the Persian idea of pure beauty that I also find in women’s hands. It provides me the opportunity to employ metaphors to conceal my story in the designs, like a female weaver creates patterns in her carpet hiding her story that would never be revealed or heard.

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These are images of my installation piece from different angles. 

 

Sogand Tabatabaei

2019