The Fallen Leaves Are Dancing

I was born in a country where our language, history, songs and identity were suppressed. This instilled in me a longing that I have never been able to let go of. My early life as a Kurdish* girl in Iran was shaped by forces far larger than myself. My father was a member of a banned Kurdish political party and was forced into exile, as were thousands of other political activists. The Iranian regime confiscated our home and our belongings. My mother was left to raise four children alone under constant threat from the regime. We only saw my father in secret during our summer holidays. I was nine when we fled Iran and were granted political asylum in Sweden. Since then, I have been searching for a sense of belonging. Through my visual art, I explore what was taken away: family stories buried under a mountain of bans; faded childhood memories; and faint echoes of an imagined homeland, shaped by forced displacement and cultural erasure. I explore how we carry our heritage, and how a sense of belonging lives on through light, the body, fleeting moments and loved ones. At its core, The Fallen Leaves Are Dancing is a personal reflection on the preservation, concealment and reclamation of identity, and the human yearning for a sense of belonging. This debut project will be on show: 11 t/m 14 Dec. De Kelder, Gierstraat 5 Haarlem.