Biaina Nazari Testimonial

I am delighted to introduce you to Biaina Nazari.

Biaina is crafty, which is not to say that she's sly. She is a maker. From an early age Biaina kept her hands busy by carving fruit pits, soap-bars, chalk, and really anything she could find. Through these artworks, Biania began crafting a central theme that defines her art practice, to this day, namely transformation.

This theme matured as Biaina connected transformation with her personal experience of actualizing the natal proclamation "it's a girl." For Biaina, the destiny of this affirmation has been shaped by cultural messages informing women that their ultimate power lies in their potential to become wives and mothers, which is to say a selfless care-givers.

As Biana's work continued to develop, it became crafty, which is to say sly.

Bianina explored how the forces of immigration and displacement further constrict women. This research fed a labor-intensive investigation of absence and presence in the old photos and memory objects that women carry with them across borders. She embroidered family photographs, recreating the female figures as fleeting shadowy presences.

In her graduate exhibition, the covertness that defines slyness has been lifted and Biaina appears unapologetically confident in large self-portraits surrounded by smaller photographs from her conservative upbringing. She is stepping out of the shadows and powerfully present.

Let me conclude with a quote from the philosopher Amia Srinivasan (See, nah, vasan):

"Feminism is not a philosophy, or a theory, or even a point of view. It is a political movement designed to transform the world beyond recognition. It asks: What would it be to end the political, social, sexual, economic, psychological, and physical subordination of women? It answers we do not know; let us try and see."

Biaina, thank you for giving us a glimpse of this future!