Cover, 2019
Cover: Black Rayon, Chalk Paint, 54”x 180”
Veil: Copper Wire, 22”x 41”
Here the body form is covered from head to toe with a black fabric called Chador. A hand-painted Farsi poem by Forugh Farokhzad covers the entire Chador, and the head is adorned with a crotched veil made with copper wire.
This piece invites the audience to look at how a woman in some countries is forced to cover herself. A woman with the same hopes and dreams as other women. They strive to be fearless and to unveil all their desires.
“I’ve sinned a sin of pleasure in a warm, inflamed embrace, sinned in a pair of vindictive arms, arms violent and ablaze. In that quiet, empty darkness, I looked into his mystic eyes, finding such longing that my heart fluttered impatiently in my breast. In that quiet, empty darkness, I sat beside him, drunk on desire spilled from his lips onto mine, and grief clenched my crazed heart. I poured songs of love into his ears: O my life, my lover, it’s you I want, life-giving arms, it’s you I crave. Crazed lover, it’s you I thirst for. Lust inflamed his eyes. Red wine trembled in the cup, my body, naked and drunk, quivered on his chest. I’ve sinned a sin of pleasure beside a body quivering and spent. I don’t know what I did, O God, in that quiet, empty darkness.”
— Sin (Gonah) by Forough Farrokhzad, 1955, translated by Jasmin Darznik
