The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
INSPIRED BY VICTORIA’S SECRET
Iranian artist explores some perceptions of women worldwide through lingerie during I-Park residency
EAST HADDAM » Deep in the woods in the Millington section of town sits 450 acres of preserved forest and marshland — a retreat that, since 2001, has been a temporary home to a multidisciplined and constantly changing enclave of artists.
I-Park is an artists-in-residence program offering free four-week residencies in visual arts, architecture, moving image, music composition/sound art, creative writing and landscape/ecological design.
The campus is bordered by Devil’s Hopyard State Park, the Nature Conservancy and East Haddam Fish and Game Club — all whose missions of land stewarding and preservation align with that of I-Park’s, said executive director and co-founder Joanne Paradis.
Iranian visual artist Azita Moradkhani, 31, packed up everything in her Boston home of five years and came to I-Park a week ago, the start of year-long back-to-back residencies she has lined up.
Inspired by her first visit to a Victoria’s Secret store in the United States, Moradkhani uses
“I was thinking about the pressure on women and censorship in some countries, but also noticed the impression it has on a female’s body in different cultures.” — Iranian visual artist Azita Moradkhani
delicately drawn images of women’s undergarments to showcase the public-private concept of women’s bodies and violence against women.
“Lace is a big part of my work. I was thinking about the pressure on women and censorship in some countries, but also noticed the impression it has on a female’s body in different cultures,” said Moradkhani, who incorporates lingerie in her drawings “to talk about a more hidden story.”
She removes an illustration of a pair of women’s panties from a plastic sheet. Close-up examination shows the lace comprises finely detailed, expression filled faces of women of every nationality.
Victoria’s Secret, a luxury merchant that has woven itself into the fabric of women’s undergarment fashion here in America, is a foreign concept in other countries, many of which consider lingerie so personal that it’s hidden in society, Moradkhani said.
So, when she first walked into one of these storefronts, looking at the mannequins adorned in colorful underwear, “immediately I was thinking public versus private, because in Iran, lingerie stores are private — like a secret — and men cannot walk in,” she said.
“I began thinking about the pressure on female’s bodies in some countries, but also pressure on women in different cultures,” said Moradkhani, who has a petite, waifish figure. “I cannot wear Victoria’s Secret because I don’t feel comfortable, but it’s supposed to be comfortable.”
She was drawn to the images “because the lingerie covers a part of your body that is most vulnerable and also where a lot of amazing things happen, like giving birth, like the pleasure, but also where the violence happens.”
These delicate and trendy undergarments are “supposed to cover and protect,” Moradkhani said. “All that encouraged me to use lingerie as a canvas for telling the stories of people and different issues that I think about.”
On the walls, Moradkhani has pinned two large panels of lace overlaid with cutouts of photographic images of well-recognized shots from war-torn areas around the globe.
Moradkhani will eventually draw these images by hand and place them either below or above the lace as part of her installation. Some portions of the lace will be cut out to reveal a pair of lips or, for instance, the face of a refugee arriving on shore, gripping a baby in one arm.
At the center of one panel, a filigree ecru robe, nearly transparent against the lace backdrop, faces back out toward the viewer.
“It’s me,” the artist said. “But I prefer you see my back. I always prefer not to have a face.”
The photo of a crown worn by the king of Iran is pinned on the lace above where Moradkhani’s head would be if she were wearing the robe.
“It’s me, but also all people around the world who have lost everything in their lives,” she said.
These residencies, Paradis said, are I-Park’s core program and are hosted every season.
“It is simply a gift of time and space for the artist,” she said. “They may use that gift as they wish. There’s no requirement to produce a piece of work at the end of it.”
At the entrance of the facility on Hopyard Road, there is no indication of it being an artist’s retreat — and no sign.
“That’s by design, because we have a duty to protect the privacy of the artist while they’re here working,” Paradis said. “That is why an artist applies to a residency program — so [he or she] can have uninterrupted free-from-distraction [time]: from home, life, your job, your obligations.
“We decided as a board of directors, we will have the public opening at the end of every session,” Paradis said. “That’s how we were going to achieve that balance of protecting the privacy of the artist but engaging with the public.”
And it’s a very competitive process to be admitted. This season, six artists were chosen from among 600 applicants.
Moradkhani came to America from Tehran five years ago.
“I emigrated to another part of the world,” she said. “I moved six times in the U.S. for two years, so I can feel what it means to have no home and to be very new and exposed and vulnerable to a new system.”
Moradkhani’s studio is part of a new pair of buildings with a more modern design on the I-Park campus. Even after a week there, nestled in the woods, she hasn’t yet heard the music played by her neighbor across the field, a composer.
That’s because his studio is very well-insulated, Paradis said.
The two new wooden structures, with a slategray exterior and one entire wall of bronze-stained windows, allow a view of an art installation just outside, left over from another residency. From a trio of fabric pods, like giant garlic cloves, grow fabric roping resembling alien appendages which stretch along the woodland floor.
The two new buildings, Paradis said, “bring us into the current age. We basically used the footprint here — an old federal, with a white common barn. The studios were chicken coops. We built a studio in [each] place in keeping with a farm style,” Paradis said, walking along one of the 26 pathways on the I-Park grounds, where some sculptures from artists past hide among the lily ponds and wetlands.
Paradis cofounded I-Park in 1993 with her good friend Ralph Crispino.
“We talked about the idea of creating a place — originally we were going to build a garden park — where we would host symposiums, invite artists, composers, thinkers and philosophers, talking about arts and ideas, but it didn’t develop that way,” she said. When she needs to take a break from the intensity of her lace installation work, Moradkhani retreats to the breast body casts she creates from wood pulp and clay. They are decorated with flowers, greenery and lace created with pigmented colored pencils. The medium is employed with such detail that it seems as though the breast is covered with a fine filigree of antique lace.
Creating her art is not an easy endeavor, Moradkhani admits.
I’ve been so devastated,” she said. “I’ve been so angry and sad by all the things that happen in Syria and other countries, the decisions made by people in power, not taking care of their responsibilities and just thinking about their own.”
Gesturing to the lace installation in progress, Moradkhani said, “I just wanted to make this piece for the feelings I have for all these victims around the world. I want to live in a country, a society that has respect for my gender. That’s very important to me.”
Moradkhani’s work and that of five other artists work from various disciplines will be on view during I-Park’s open studios Aug. 20, the culmination of their time at the retreat.
Admission to the open studios is free and visitors are encouraged to make reservations at i-park.org, emailing events@i-park.org or calling 860-873-2468. Check out Moradkhani’s work at azimore.com.