Fahimeh Vahdat
Visual Artist
Exhibiting:
The Soldiers are coming
Medium: Charcoal on hand-made paper
Dimensions: 84"X120"
On participating in Vagina Festival 2008:
The issues of sexuality, body image, personal identity, health and well being, are greatly effected by the ongoing subjection of women to violence world-wide. Conversation about violence is suppressed, institutionally, in the media and individually by the very ugliness and overwhelming scale of the problem. Yet unless we converse publicly about the ways women are treated, physically, mentally and spiritually, we can not expect to begin to see significant change. My figurative work deals with the issue of violence against women and girls As I make the individual portraits/figures of women and girls, I hope to give all women voice and power one human at a time. I further seek the viewer's involvement, creating dialogue to educate people towards the eradication of all types of violence against women and girls.
Artist Statement:
Fahimeh Vahdat (Bio) A native of Iran, Vahdat experienced displacement and religious exile as the revolution broke out in 1979 in Iran, first relocating to England and then to the U.S. Fahimeh shares in the challenges many immigrants experience of being uprooted. Unwelcome in her own country, she has also experienced stigmatization in the west as an Iranian American. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, most recently at venues in Naples, Italy and Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as Washington, D.C. In addition to exhibiting her own work, Fahimeh is active in both the arts and educational communities, presenting in international conferences, curating exhibitions and jurying shows. Grants include NEA for the multi-media Installation "Sacred Crossings." She is a Professor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. (Statement) Violence against women is a worldwide phenomenon, not limited to country, type of government, ethnicity, race, religion or class. In "What Will Befall Her?" series, large-scale drawings depict one or more women against a backdrop of symbols and text. This body of work deals with all forms of violence against women and girls. The scale of this phenomenon is pandemic, affecting approximately half of the world's population. Extreme examples of gender oppression, the killing of female babies, bride burning, "honor killing', rape camps, female genital mutilation, sexual trafficking in women and children, and incest are so horrific as to make them difficult to comprehend for those who have not directly experienced the crimes. The world effectively looks the other way as millions on millions of women suffer or die. The graphic black on white at once symbolizes the oppression, and strips the work to essential elements. Persian rugs inspire the compositional format of the work.
Contact: fvahdat@miad.edu
Website: FahimehVahdat.com
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Vagina Festival is presented entirely by volunteers. We keep expenses low and produce the event with the help of generous sponsors. Please join us in creating a space for conversation.
• "The Explorer's" blog entry about Fahimeh's work >
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