“Yadet Miad?” - Recollections of Jewish Life in Iran

This series of graphite illustrations on paper combines images and text from a wide range of sources to pose and address the question: “what does it feel like to remember a place you have never been?”

As an American-born descendant of Persian Jews barred from entering Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Levy incorporates images and words drawn from family photos, state-issued documents, Persian ketubbot (Jewish marriage contracts), post-revolutionary Iranian photography, album covers, and visual representations of memories her family has recalled over the years.

The illustrations serve to walk the line between legitimate forms of recollection and fabrications of a cultural imaginary. Levy negotiates how attempting to immerse oneself in a visual landscape accessible only through secondhand images (rather than firsthand sight) can both toy with and clarify her perception of Jewish life in Iran from a diasporic standpoint.

* yadet miad / یادت میاد translates to ‘do you remember?’