WINTER 2022

Banafsheha digitally manipulates a series of photos sent to her by her grandmother, toying with physical and impalpable notions of preservation in a tenderly awkward fight against time.

This series of artworks was influenced by my family’s history, which unfolds between the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, and the Republic of Brazil. My mother’s side of the family settled in Brazil after fleeing the Spanish Inquisition as marranos – Sephardim who moved through public society as Christians, yet secretly practiced Judaism in the privacy of their homes. My father’s side of the family came from Ottoman Syria in the wake of the Assyrian Genocide, and from Egypt after WWI.

A series of embroidery works depicting bodies, some whole and some fragmented. They are surrounded by a hand-woven pattern, recalling the shapes, colors and processes of traditionally woven textiles in a small, intimate format. The bodies are androgynous, comfortably and vulnerably in a state of in-between-ness, inviting a gaze to view them as they are. 

Hamdam, meaning “of the same breath.” The triptych of screenprints pays tribute to a deep sisterhood. Two figures stand side by side in black gowns, twin expressions on their faces. Their overlapping hands are linked and joined as if belonging to only one person. Likewise, the figures’ heads and bodies merge as one, reflecting the depth of their bond. In the center panel, a rose makes reference to the Persian funerary rites of dousing graves in rosewater.