In the third iteration of the storytelling project Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York the pandemic framed our choices. We skipped the photographs done in past editions and opted for a podcast format to showcase the audio interviews. One of the participants, Bahar Sabzevari, a visual artist from Iran, was commissioned to create an collaged self-portrait. Based in New York City, Sabzevari’s career spans over 15 years of work and study in Iran, Europe, and the US. Her painting practice explores identity through self-portraiture, narrative painting and drawing. By Integrating Persian motifs, religious details and characters, her self-portraits investigate the boundaries of human identity: freedom, restriction, and sense of place and belonging. In particular, her work looks at transient and hidden forms of identity: the imagination, hopes, fears, dreams, histories and evolution. Sabzevari’s process is research and studio-based and involves the bringing together of complex imagery, symbols and narratives, often drawing from the fields of mythology, science, religion and art history.
Seventeen years ago, when I moved to France from Iran for the first time I used to draw myself through a mirror and that was my everyday ritual, the way I found to communicate with myself and others beyond the languages. Throughout Art History self-portrait has somehow been a fundamental need to women artists to express themselves and their views. I see my self-portraits as visual diaries and records of my dreams, thoughts, personal memories. I challenge myself by blurring the lines between subject, object, real, unreal, animal human, eastern, western. I love to show contradictions, because life is full of contradictions. That inspires me a lot to choose symbols, patterns from my cultural background. I’m often referencing Iranian history, exploring the relationship between contemporary culture and art history, natural history, religion, mythology. Most of the time I start by drawing a crown for my portraits as a symbol of power, victory, honor and glory because I believe every woman is a queen and their personal story or experiences in life and their dreams make their crowns.
I’m obsessed with medieval illustration and Indo-Persian painting, which are made of animals and monsters. I don’t limit myself on anything, I give myself a range of possibilities to make a body of work but I do research about my concept, use the characters and motifs I connect with or the elements that complete the narration of my painting. I like collecting pictures of animals, mixed models and draw from them and use my imagination as well, which is very close to the idea of collage. For this project specially I followed my self-portrait process as usual, to find my idea for making something related to identity and immigration. You see in this work the familiar Persian visuals, such as patterns and symbols of traditional Persian miniature. I printed out my image and applied an acrylic medium to paste them on the board and I got over it with other mediums such as plastic, acrylic paint, ink and colored pencils. The concept of this bird is a kind of mystical bird in Persian culture, it’s called Simurgh, and it’s a bird that is made from 30 birds. It’s kind of flying, going from one place to the other place.
To listen to Bahar Sabzevari’s complete interview for the podcast series Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York 2020/2021, click here.
Bahar Sabzevari also facilitated a collage-making workshop to the other participants of the project and to NWNY community members. The medium was chosen because it’s accessible and captures the zeitgeist of our time – fragmented, fast-paced and multilayered like our lives shaped by Zoom, social media scrolling, and narrative disputes. Below, see a sample of collages created during the workshop. Scroll down to learn more about each participant’s process:
Valentina: Untitled Paper, crayons and mixed media. Anna, Crescent Ann. Acrylic paint, parchment paper, pencils, old magazines. Nazia: My Voice (self-portrait). Paper, plastic mesh bag, screenprint and sticker. Alena: Untitled. Paper, mixed media, shells, stones, dry leaves, petals and wood. Anastassiya, Untitled. Paper, photograph, and mixed media.
Valentina (Italy), Untitled. Paper, crayon s and mixed media, 2021:
To create my collaged self-portrait I began following Sabzevari’s suggestions: I chose my pic and some images that were familiar to me, images that talked to me and that talked about me. I began with the background: I chose an image of Arches Park that I visited in February 2020 with my husband just before the pandemic. I assembled the different elements paying attention to the color juxtaposition. The yellow lines are rays of light and are a sign of hope. The little man represents curiosity and fear; curiosity and fear that I carry with me. The circular images represent the beauty and the confusion of this time. To finish the process, I colored the collage with pastels and a marking pen to complete the color contrast.
Anna (Russia), Crescent Ann. Acrylic paint, parchment paper, pencils, old magazines, 2021:
Recent challenges brought me to the process of rediscovering, reunderstanding and recasting myself. The collage was a good opportunity to reflect on how I see myself and what defines my personality. It looks like I’m looking for the hidden strength and energy in my subconscious – and I hope to grow to my full shine soon.
Nazia (Bangladesh), My Voice (self-portrait). Paper, plastic mesh bag, screenprint and sticker, 2021:
There are elements of contradiction – a very strong characteristic of myself as a person – in the composition, like straight sharp edges and torn & softer, undulating edges. The papers that I chose also show similar contradictions: some are solid, some have softer textures. The overall color palette is of earth tones, which I gravitate towards generally as a person. Some of the elements of the composition go out of the “canvas” hinting at breaking the boundaries. The mesh covering almost the entire composition comes from the feelings of restriction that I often face here as a person from a different culture and background -– which perhaps I impose upon myself at times too.
Alena (Belarus), Untitled. Paper, mixed media, shells, stones, dry leaves, petals and wood, 2021:
I loved our workshop, and I enjoyed and relaxed working on my own. I don’t feel comfortable putting myself directly into my collages. I like to do it as a reflection about my emotions or thoughts. I like to work with natural materials like I used for this one: shells, stones, dry leaves and petals, and wood (my favorite material).
Anastassiya (Kazakhstan), Untitled. Paper, photograph, and mixed media, 2021:
I tried to use all the things laying around my house: pencils, markers, old clothes, chocolate wrappers, dried leaves and so on. My main goal was to use as much color as possible. In the middle, there is a core. It is my core, my inner universe, which I don’t know fully myself, that is why there is a long road to it below. There is a younger me on that road, but I am only in the beginning of my path towards my core, towards understanding who I am.There is also the main question: Isn’t it fun? The question has many different meanings. Isn’t this life fun? Isn’t this, what I am doing, fun? Isn’t it fun?(with sarcasm).