Alinah Azadeh; Mother Tongue; photo- Xavier Young; courtesy - The Shape of Things
Alinah will talk about the source and form of the autobiographical elements of her sculptural work such as Mother Tongue (2009) - embodied in objects, cloth and written texts - and how this has led to the creation of larger, relational installations such as The Gifts (2010, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery) and Chasing Mirrors: Portraits of the Unseen (2011, National Portrait Gallery).
“Mother Tongue (2009) was the completion of a two year process following the sudden death of my (Iranian) mother just after the birth of my first child. I wrapped three of my mother's rice cookers in wool and silk, then bound them in black binding and wrote three translations of the same song -based on a Sufi poem by Rumi - on them. It was the song that was playing when I was in labour with my first child and I remember my mother sitting there translating it to me from Farsi to English, all three of us connected in a single moment. My curator called it the 'prologue' to The Gifts (2010), because of some of the themes it draws on; the core relationship through an ancestral line from my mother to my daughter through me embodied in everyday objects, the transmission and gradual loss of language, the cultural specificity of the text itself, the ritual of wrapping as a form of closure.
These became important in the collecting and collaborative wrapping of the 999 objects for The Gifts and a materialisation not only of each individuals identity within the work but also of our encounter with each other. The place of narrative, texts expanded with the Chasing Mirrors project and their relationship to objects donated as a kind of poetic directory. I will trace the narrative journey between these works and how it has enabled me to develop a sculptural language that has text, textile and live encounter at its heart.”
“Mother Tongue (2009) was the completion of a two year process following the sudden death of my (Iranian) mother just after the birth of my first child. I wrapped three of my mother's rice cookers in wool and silk, then bound them in black binding and wrote three translations of the same song -based on a Sufi poem by Rumi - on them. It was the song that was playing when I was in labour with my first child and I remember my mother sitting there translating it to me from Farsi to English, all three of us connected in a single moment. My curator called it the 'prologue' to The Gifts (2010), because of some of the themes it draws on; the core relationship through an ancestral line from my mother to my daughter through me embodied in everyday objects, the transmission and gradual loss of language, the cultural specificity of the text itself, the ritual of wrapping as a form of closure.
These became important in the collecting and collaborative wrapping of the 999 objects for The Gifts and a materialisation not only of each individuals identity within the work but also of our encounter with each other. The place of narrative, texts expanded with the Chasing Mirrors project and their relationship to objects donated as a kind of poetic directory. I will trace the narrative journey between these works and how it has enabled me to develop a sculptural language that has text, textile and live encounter at its heart.”
Link to the works:
Alinah Azadeh is a British-Iranian artist. Her background is in fine art – painting, video and digital media - and in 2001 she completed an MA in Contemporary Media Practice at the University of Westminster. Recent works include The Gifts, (2010) a suspended installation of 999 objects given to the artist by the public and wrapped in cloth. This commission, for Bristol Museum and Art Gallery through The Shape of Things, was her first major solo show in the UK. The Bibliomancer’s Dream (2009) and Dream On (2010), two large-scale, interactive book installations commissioned by South Bank Centre, London were developed in collaboration with sculptor Willow Winston. Chasing Mirrors: Portraits of the Unseen, is a collaborative installation for The National Portrait Gallery, playing with ideas of non-figurative portraiture. Many of her public installations result from processes of collaboration and participation, with other practitioners, specific groups and/or the public. She works across disciplines, and is currently focused on working with cloth, poetry, mirroring and personal or found objects. Alongside her public work, she makes smaller works, including fabric sculptures and drawings.
Alinah Azadeh; The Gifts; photo- David Emeney, Bristol's Museums, Galleries and Archives; courtesy - The Shape of Things
Alinah Azadeh; Chasing Mirrors: Portraits of the Unseen, photo - Anna Calvocoressi; courtesy - The National Portrait Gallery, London.
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