Artist Statement : My piece is called “Till We Meet Again” “ and is a continuation of work I had been doing during the lockdown on traditional Iranian embroidery .The embroidery is on woolen fabric and yarns from Kerman , Iran and is stitched with traditional Pateh Doozi stitches but has a modern design interpreting the Covid 19 virus.
Lockdown Embroidery
I live in Iran where there has been over 130.000 deaths due to Covid until now. The vaccination program was slow but eventually I had my two jabs of the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm . I could not travel due to Lockdown and have not been able to travel as neither the UK , Germany nor Canada recognize Sinopharm as a legitimate vaccine . I have not seen my children and my family since the first lockdown .
I am holding my breath , trying to stay positive ….and am very grateful that we are all safe and healthy so far !
Till we meet again !
https://instagram.com/the_covid_chronicle?utm_medium=copy_link
This project was started by Wendy Bliss, Textile Artist , based in the UK .The project is in aid of MIND which is a charitable organization which provides support and empowerment to anyone suffering from mental health issues especially in the wake of the global pandemic in 2019.
Update: my piece kept evolving as I was waiting for the group to complete their work . As the dire situation got worse and new variants kept appearing , it seems my piece got darker , less coherent and more dispersed as too did the inside of my head .
Group Work
16 members of Patchiran decided to take part in the project and they were mentored by myself and Maryam Tabatabaie . We translated the brief which was to design a piece portraying either their own experiences during the Covid Pandemic or subjects relating to the Lockdown.
We were eager that each member experiment with their own interpretation of the brief and suggested included Farsi and if possible traditional embroidery and motifs.
The group includes patchwork and quilting,weaving ,graphic and embroidery artists and each submitted their design and final piece according to the template of choice along with a 200 word artist statement .
Transporting the pieces was also a problem especially during the pandemic what with cancelled flights, family members and friends contracting the disease and also deaths . Also , impositioning people to take on even more responsibility juggling PCR tests and flight requirements is difficult .That is why a big thank you goes to Clare Goodall from the British Embassy here in Tehran who kindly agreed to transport the pieces to the Uk and register post them to Wendy Bliss before the deadline
We are excited to announce that these 16 pieces from Iran will tour in the UK in 2022 as part of a worldwide contribution of 140 pieces stitched into a 35m long panel .
Dzignpatch 