April-May 2013 | Mottahedan Projects | Dubai/UAE
Upon arriving in Sweden in September of 2009, I was struck by the new surroundings and how they differed immensely in comparison to those of Iran with which I was so familiar. My consciousness about facts and conditions which were inevitable grew keener in this new world; I began to look at the society, as well as my own family, from a third angle perspective, like someone looking in from the outside, separated as if by a pane of glass. The influences of my new surroundings haunted me, at times from within, revealing to me inner thoughts which were had changed since my arrival.
In Sweden I faced differences I never before had to face, and realized the universality of this challenge, faced by millions all over the world: life is a giant, continuous sequence of games, and we must learn how to be good players—not how to win, but how to be able to play adequately. Games have been my main interest since I was a child; my elder sister and I used to sew under the skin of our palms, playing to see who could sew better without losing the thread.
This piece opens up conversation about the condition that society imposes on the individual woman, and the impossibility of her overcoming these conditions, which accumulate and suffocate her, controlling her more than she can control them. The video starts with a frame of two hands that are sewing one another by a thread, until the thread becomes shorter and the needle itself becomes stuck.
http://mottahedan.com/exhibitions/from-outside-or-otherwise
