Gallery 3

Remnants of a Dismantled State

Shahroud Ghahani

@shahroud_ghahani | shahroudghahani.com

Roomsheet

Remnants of a Dismantled State is a personal, emotional and politically charged exhibition exploring Shahroud Ghahani’s experiences of exile, war and otherness through a feminist lens. Ghahani creates a portal into the memories of her past, a fragmentary connection to an imaginary homeland. Indeed, the country she was born in has changed irrevocably and violently since her forced departure; as such, these ruminations on its past state and beauty are marred by the present. 

Beginning with a distorted photograph of her grandparent's house in Tehran, the artist has created a series of allegorical and surrealist images centring the idea of the feminine and the feminine base within a home, family, or culture; to combat the separation from the motherland/s.

With multiple doors and gateways that both close off and open up to pathways and journeys, Ghahani observes that dismantlement can give way to hope and optimism despite exile and otherness.