This diptych arguably transcends the role of the family portrait as it comments on the place of Iranian Jewish women in a broader national culture largely built on Islamic history, lore, and spirituality. The prints’ pop-art flair also serves to ironically question flattening, simplistic understandings of Jewish acculturation into Muslim Iran. Rather than accepting the inherent complexity and nuance of Persian Jewish sociocultural history, it can be easy to view the existence of Jewish life in Iran as “incompatible” with its backdrop of national history dominated by Shi’a Muslim influence.

Evan Mateen approached pottery as a new medium in an effort to expand his vocabulary in traditional Iranian art forms, combining imagery from talismans and miniatures with excerpts of classical Persian poems. The following is a selection of vessels and clayware he made during his first two years at Harvard College.

Some photographs are easily dateable based off simple clothing, orientation, and film markers. But among these lurk photographs that, when taken out of context, seem to possess an ambiguous sense of timelessness and nostalgia. By experimenting with different combinations of ink color, image scale, and resolution in the screenprints I make, I am hoping to bring new life, perspective, and accessibility to the past.