Narratives of the Self: A Walk Through a Labyrinth

This paper parallels my thesis exhibition entitled Narratives of the Self: A Walk Through a Labyrinth. This expansive installation of wooden sculpture frames embedded with hand-dyed fabric, explores notions of private and public, in relation to my personal experience of growing up in Iran. In this thesis support paper I address how notions of private and public could be perceived as fluid, unfixed and in the state of flux, yet they tend to be perceived as fixed entities. When referring to private, I mean the idea of home as a realm that belongs to the inside world, and public as it belongs to the states patriarchal authority. Drawing from my art practice, the notions of private and public are addressed metaphorically by the use of narrative allusions, expressive materials and processes such as dying, stretching, cutting and knotting.