Memory leaves imprints over the years, sometimes cackling, sometimes wailing, sometimes too full of serious. You live in the present while dreaming the many futures you’ve imagined inside your loud brain, as you, laughing hard because it is a game to you in your stubborn boredness, reach your disabled little arm and hand out from your physical reeducation pose on top of the huge red gym ball, who now collects dust in someone else’s storage. You look and you’re laughing in secret, raiding your mother’s closet trying on the first pair of heels you find on the floor inside, below your father’s suits and ties. Your mother chides you, your disabled little leg barely staying forthright up in place. Her lipstick becomes your lipstick. She teaches you color matters and so red doesn’t have to be your color. You imagine stars contouring your eyes. You don’t need to look while you apply the kôhl. You close your eyes. Your grandmother always does this in front of cameras and she always smooths down her clothes before leaving the house, making sure her brushing hair was still impeccable. She was always so careful, you are ashamed, you never make the effort. You look and you avoid. The mirror cracks now under the weight of your gaze.
Shirin Abedinirad, The Sky Is Mine, 2016. Land art, Semnan, Iran. Created for The Absence of Paths, Tunisian Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, the work brings the sky down to earth as a gesture of hope, liberation, and belonging. Artwork Courtesy of our featured artist.
