Bayt AlMamzar, an independent art space in Dubai, is hosting In your dreams, an exhibition spotlighting seven Iranian creatives. Curated by Yalda Bidshahri, an Iranian writer and curator based in the UAE, the show blends traditional Iranian cultural elements with imaginative and provocative themes, offering new perspectives on identity and gender. The exhibition will be open to the public until 12 October 2024.

Multimedia artist Dorsa Asadi draws from mythology, psychology, and structuralism. Incorporating the aesthetics of vibrant Iranian paintings and tiles into her work, Asadi explores themes of gender, identity, and environmental issues. In the exhibition, she displays some of her glazed ceramic works that explore ongoing feminist struggles and inspire a shift from anger and grief to radical joy.

British-Iranian artist and Kuṇḍalinī initiate Lilian Nejatpour showcases Mother Earth Went for a Walk (2024), a sculpture inspired by a dream of a sacred tree adorned with hair symbolising both the abject and divine aspects of femininity. Meanwhile, interdisciplinary artist Niloofar Taatizadeh exhibits textile pieces from her Mutations of U, او series. The artist’s practice-based research offers a decolonial perspective on Eastern materiality, focusing on 19th-century Qajar dynasty artefacts.

Artist and photographer Chupan Mehraneh Atashi focuses on the relationship between personal and worldly time. Through an excavation of memories, archiving, and documentation of the self, she explores these relationships as forces of transition, change, and rupture. In the exhibition, Atashi presents two series of photo works: Tehran’s Self-Portraits (2008-2010) and Flowers (2010). Here, the self captured against intensifying public settings transforms into resilient wildflowers growing in harsh conditions as metaphoric reflections of violent restraining mechanisms.

Working at the intersection of cinema and live performance, visual artist Maryam Tafakory creates textual and film collages that reveal concealed acts of erasure of bodies, intimacies, and histories. The exhibition features her piece Nazarbazi (“the play of glances”) (2022), a twenty-minute found-footage collage about love and desire in Iranian cinema where depictions of intimacy between women and men are prohibited.

Interdisciplinary artist, curator, and creative writer Fatemeh Kazemi presents her ongoing project titled Poor Knee; [Loose Tongue]; Trigger Finger, which revolves around the idea of navigating the body in moments it has internally forgotten. Through text, archives, video, and installation, Kazemi tells the stories of indeterminate bodies at the intersection of identity and gender.

The exhibition also features London-based multidisciplinary artist Gisou Golshani hailing from Iran. Employing sound, performance, and poetic chants, she performs rituals of belonging and resistance. Her practice examines fictioning, hauntology, and speculative world-building, reflecting on themes of land, liberation, and collective healing.

To get more information about In your dreams, please go to the official web page of the show.

In addition, you might be interested in reading our article about three NFT female Arab artists.