Bodies left behind
2017 | \Airplane wings, aluminum, fabricated steel | 187 x 362 x 362 in.
Franconia Sculpture Park, Franconia, MN
Collaboration with Pedram Baldari
Crossing is a potent act psychologically and socio-politically. This act can have dire consequences for bodies that lack a particular privilege—the ability to make borders a mere formality and with that move freely.
The human desire for mobility has even taken up wings as a result of the imagination of generations—those who desired to fly into the sunrise or sunset, beyond the horizon and the oceans, where dreams of being free begin. However, this simple desire can quickly become a nightmare based on one’s nationality or skin color.
Although the dream knows no border, no geography, no color, it does not care for confinement. The dream refuses restrictions, even if it comes with a high price of leaving something dear behind. In a way, immigration can have such connotations; it is a dilemma of the body, where mobility ceases based on the body's failure to meet a set of criteria.
This disorientation can run so deep, that it’s as if the wings have crossed over, but the body has been left behind. The work embodies this concept using a trio of pinwheeled, dismembered airplane wings, suspended and strained under a dome. In Iranian culture, the dome is a symbol of unity—a oneness with the universe. By juxtaposing symbols of harmony and dissonance, we illustrate the dream in contrast with reality.
