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Project Title: Hall
of Reflections
Recipient Organization: Persian Center
Lead Artist: Taraneh Hemami
Genre and Date Awarded: Visual Arts, June 2000
Installed at the Persian Center: December 2003
Lead Artist Taraneh Hemami, collaborating with Persian
Center in
Berkeley, California, gathered images and personal stories from over
100 Iranian immigrants in Northern California. The collected materials
were printed onto transparencies and assembled between layers of
silk-screened glass and mirrors for permanent installation atthe
Center’s social hall. The project is based on the mirrored talar found
in many historic buildings in Iran, and inspired by Persian patterns
and designs.
Hemami writes, “My work has become the means by which I create
connections to the place, the people and the culture I left behind
when I immigrated to this country more than twenty five years ago… I
have used the motifs and patterns of my culture as well as looked
to the stories of my people to create works that reflect our collective
history.” More than 25 years have passed since the Iranian
revolution which caused over half a million Iranians to move to the
United States of America. Many believed the rush of migrations and
escapes from Iran would be temporary, but for most, they have proved
to be a permanent resettlement. The hostage crisis changed the relationship
between the two countries, moving back and forth becamevery difficult;
and the Iran-Iraq war dissuaded many Iranians from going home. Over
the past 20 years, Iranian-Americans have become an established community
in the United States. As they have moved beyond a period of survival
and social adjustment, many now seek to reconnect with the culture
of their homeland and to pass their cultural heritage on to future
generations. Others, who suffered imprisonment and abuse before leaving,
now find the distance from that past that allows them to tell their
stories.
“There is a new energy in the community of Iranian-Americans
at the turn of the century. There is a great amount of hope to be
able to create a space, a basic, vital gathering center where the
survival of culture in the new homeland becomes possible.” The
collaborating organization, Persian Center’s mission is to
create such an environment—a place for social, educational,
and recreational activities. The Center was established as a nonprofit
organization in 1992 and, in 1998, found a home in an historical
building in the center of downtown Berkeley. Its board and supporters
successfully raised the funding to purchase the building in March
2004 . By inviting members of the Iranian American community to come
together to share their stories and images, creating the “Hall
of Reflections” directly addresses the Center’s mission.
It also will help to mark the center as a distinctively Persian space.
Artist Taraneh Hemami has been an active, exhibiting Bay Area artist
since receiving her Masters of Fine Arts from California College
of the Arts in 1991. Her work has ranged from large, personal paintings
to intimate book arts, from sculptures to installations, from performances
to digital sound pieces. Motifs and structures of Islamic and Persian
arts and architecture have been a source of inspiration for Hemami’s
work for the past ten years, yet this project is her first opportunity
to create a piece that will become part of a permanent architectural
space.
Originally scheduled for installation in 2001, “Hall of Reflections” was
delayed due to its success. While building trust among members of
the Iranian-American community was initially slow, once Hemami’s
and the Center’s outreach efforts began to work, she was given
access to an enormous body of material—photo albums, personal
archives as well as oral histories. The San Francisco Arts Commission
selected the work for exhibition, presenting “Hall of Reflections:
Remembrances of Bay Area Iranian-American Immigrants” in September-October
2002; and in April 2003 the piece was selected for the prestigious
Sharjah Biennial at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sharjah, the
United Arab Emirates. In the wake of the outbreak of the war in Iraq,
Hemami adapted the form of the installation—presenting the
mirrors within a pile of rubble in the gallery. In addition Hall
of Reflections project was exhibited at several other curated exhibition
including an installation at the Richmond Health Center where Darvag
Theater, a Berkeley based Iranian theater group did a performance
reading of the collected written materials. These exhibitions greatly
increased the audience for the project and created the opportunity
for further collaborations with many organizations, writers and scholars
in the Iranian community. The permanent piece at Persian Center was
installed in December 2003, where many of the participants were invited
to read from their entries, and others were encouraged to add to
the collected materials. Hemami is now working on the completion
of a website for the stories of Hall of Reflections as part of the
California Council for the Humanities’ California Stories Fund
project.
Taraneh Hemami (statement)
In her work, Taraneh Hemami focuses on issues of identity, gender,
and migration through examining her Iranian cultural heritage. She
writes, “…my art has increasingly become both the record
and the interpretations of my hybrid existence, translating that
which has influenced me in each world and has become part of my core.
Continuously collecting, organizing, recording and archiving, I explore
issues of loss, belonging and preservation, creating personal as
well as collective records and narratives.”
Selected Exhibitions
- “Elsewhere”,
curated by Sana’ Makhul, Worth Ryder Gallery, University
of California, Berkeley, California (2004)
- “Sacred Spaces”,
curated by Terri Cohn, Berkeley Arts Center, Berkeley, California
(2004)
- “The Drawing Project”,
Vamiali Art Gallery, Athens, Greece (2004)
- “Poetics of Proximity”,
Curated by Gul Cagin and Lida Abdullah, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman
University, Orange, California (2004)
- “Twenty
Five Years of Exile, curated by Farzad Karimi, Articultural,
Los Angeles, California (2003)
- “Re-Collections”,
Curated by Ann Schnake, Richmond Health Center, Installation/Performance,
Richmond, California (2003)
- Sharjah 6’th
International Biennial, Sharjah Museum of Art, curated by Peter
Lewis and Hoor Al Qasemi, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates(2003)
- “Hall of Reflections”,
Solo Exhibition, Curated by Rupert Jenkins, San Francisco Arts
Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California (2002)
- “re-counting”,
Judah Magnes Museum, Commission, Berkeley, California (2001)
- “The Word Room”,
by the collaborative Post-Exile, Janalyn White Gallery, Cedar
Rapids, Iowa (2001)
- “Reconstructing Reality”,
The Oakland Gallery, Oakland, California (2001)
- “Alchemy”,
Curated by CIMA, M. Y. Art Prospects, New York, New York(2001)
- “Calligraphic Legacy”,
curated by Artscource Consulting, Transamerica Pyramid Lobby
Gallery, San Francisco, California (2001)
- Trans/Planting,
A Space Gallery, co-curated by Gita Hashemi and Taraneh Hemami,
Toronto, Canada (2000)
- “Mirrors of the Invisible”,
Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum, California State University,
San Bernardino, California (2000)
- “Selections 2000”,
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Artspan, San Francisco, California
(2000)
- “Beyond Boundaries”,
Worth Ryder Gallery, Co-Curated with The Iranian Women’s
Studies Foundation, University of California, Berkeley, California
(2000)
- “Four Walls”,
curated by Donna Schumacher, Contemporary Arts Collective, Las
Vegas, Nevada (1998)
- “Betrothed,” curated
by Terri Cohn, Falkirk Cultural Center,San Rafael, California
(1996)
- “Sacred Space/Layered
Stories”, Solo Exhibition, The Lab, San Francisco, California
(1995)
- “Family Stories”,
Solo Exhibition, Maude Kern Center for the Arts, Eugene, Oregon
(1995)
- San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art Artist’s Gallery, San Francisco, California (1995)
- “Labyrinth of Exile,” The
J. Paul Getty Trust Gallery, Fowler Museum, University of California,
Los Angeles (1994)
- “Coming Across”,
curated by Jan Rindfleisch, Euthrat Museum of Art, San Jose,
California (1994)
- “Beyond the Written
Word,” curated by Terri Cohn, San Jose Institute for Contemporary
Art San Jose, California (1994)
- “A Family Portrait,” Matrix
Gallery, Sacramento, California (1993)
- “Creating Ourselves,” curated
by Lucy Lippard, Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, New
Mexico (1991)
- “Veiled Secrets”,
Solo Exhibition, The Downtown Gallery, California College of
the Arts, Oakland, CA
- “Room of Hijab”,
Solo Exhibition, Alice Arts Center, Oakland, CA
Awards, Grants, and Residencies
- Residency,
Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2004)
- Visions from the New California Award, James Irvine
Foundation (2004)
- California
Stories Fund, California Council for the Humanities,
San Francisco, CA (2003)
- San
Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grant, San Francisco,
CA(2001)
- Creative
Work Fund, San Francisco, CA(2000)
- Artists
in Residence, California Arts Council , CA (2000-2001)
- Residency,
Sound-Lab, The Lab, San Francisco, California (1995)
- Affiliate
artist, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California
(1994-97)
- 1993 Artists’ Project
Grants, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, California (1993)
- Residency,
Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, Saratoga, California
(1993)
- 1993
San Francisco Women Artists Emerging Artist Award (1993)
- Richard
Price Scholarship, California College of Arts and Crafts
(1991)
- All
College Honors Award, California College of Arts and Crafts
(1990)
- Siegriest
Annual Scholarship, California College of Arts and Crafts
(1989)
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