Golnar Adili

Centre Street Building, Level 4

On view in Across Asia: Arts of Asia and the Islamic World

Golnar Adili was born in Virginia and migrated with her family from the United States to Tehran as a young child. Her father, an Iranian activist, was forced into exile while Adili and her mother remained in Iran, separated from him, for many years. This work transforms a passport photograph of the artist’s mother from the time after her family divided into a poignant statement about the loss and longing of those separated by strife from the people and places they love. The laser-cut poem by Hafez imbues the piece with deeper cultural and historical connection to a poet who was also forced to flee his home.

Artist’s Statement: Ghobar é Gham is a phrase composed of two words—Dust and Sorrow—from the poem “Saman Bouyan” by the 14th-century Persian poet Hafez. My mother’s gaze, from her Iranian passport photo from the early eighties, has become a recurring image in my work, which explores diasporic memory through photographic print processes. Her eyes tell a story of the hardships she endured as our family was torn apart by the geopolitical upheaval following the 1979 revolution. The delicate, poignant words of Hafez resonate deeply with the emotions her gaze evokes in me, inspiring me to experiment with perforating the photo litho print to capture poetic fragility, a reminder that the political is personal. —Golnar Adili