Allegedly the worst is behind us, 2024

Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose

Curated by Zoë Latzer

Curatorial Statement: “The exhibition features twelve contemporary artists who work to mend and amend the past in reckonings with memories, records, and archives, acting as both revisionists and storytellers. Drawing from their own family lineages and cultural backgrounds, in many cases lost or ruptured through forced relocation or removal, each artist explores what it means to be a living archive, carrying previous generations’ experience into the present. Through investigations in installation, painting, and video, they affirm the importance of art in keeping and questioning history—creating not mythic pasts but active practices for considering what stories need to be told, and, even rewritten. 

In Allegedly the worst is behind us, past knowledge and future imagination meld in the hands of living artists who show us how re-examinations of history can offer insight towards the radical changes needed for today. The exhibition prompts the questions: What does it mean to inhabit a fraught or silenced history? How do we critically analyze and reconstruct historical narratives while caring and tending to our communities? How can reflecting on the past create spaces of liberation for the future?”

Six of the videos of volunteer women cutting their hair

Volunteer women who donated their hair:
Dr. Ladan, A.  (Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at The San Diego Museum of Art ), Dr. Persis, K. (Neda Nobari Distinguished Chair, Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies @San Francisco State University), Summer B.,   Heather W.,   Joelle B.,    Jordan K.,   Valerie B.,   Sahba S.,  Mahsa V.,   Roya P.,   Anahita B.,   Sara A.,    Fariba B.,   Arezou P.,  Hamideh G.,   Sara T.,   Junko T.,   Johanna P.,  Jennifer L.,   and    Victoria H.

The 10th-century poet Ferdowsi in Shahnameh: Book of Kings, referred to the hero Siavash’s wife cutting “her musky tresses” to grieve for and protest his death.

Inspiration and Research

Square Kufic is an Arabic script. The script was originally created with bricks and tiles in Iran, during the medieval period, functioning as pixels.
Arabic and Persian languages use similar alphabets but the languages don’t share the same origin. Below are examples of tile patterns and Square Kufic script, functioning as pixels, from the Topkapi scroll, in late medieval Iran.

I Will Rise in Slow Accession, 2024

Installation at Palo Alto Art Center, Funded by The Palo Alto Art Center Foundation

“I Will Rise in Slow Accession,” a title drawn from a verse in a poem by Iranian poet and activist Simin Behbahani, is a project that expands upon my 2022 work honoring the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran- the protest against female subjugation and compulsory hijab and for bodily autonomy. Drawing on historical context in Persian paintings from the late medieval period, I reimagine the garden scenes and characters to reflect on contemporary issues. Traditionally, these paintings featured gardens and other spaces and mainly portrayed male figures engaged in activities often described in Persian poetry, such as scenes from the Shah-Nama (The Book of Kings) by the 10th-century poet Ferdowsi. In this series, guided by Behbahani’s feminist and socio-political poetry themes, I shift the narrative and perspective to claim sovereignty, emphasizing female agency and bodily autonomy. My female action figures are modeled after those found in classical Persian paintings. I draw them as actively subversive, faceless with dramatically billowing hair, and reimagine their roles and affairs. This historical and cultural recontextualizing allows me to explore and assert powerful roles to women and create a dialogue between the past and present. Surrounding these characters, I have crafted the Square Kufic word tiles. Starting in the 12th century, in Iran, these tiles were composed of small square pieces (pixels) to create religious words in Kufic script on facades of buildings using ceramic tiles. I craft my Square Kufic pixel tiles to connote female agency and bodily autonomy using provocative words such as Sheer Zan (brave woman), Raha (free), Khod-Mokhtar (autonomous), Tasaavee (equality), Khod-Kafaa (independent), Zendegee (life), and Tavaanaa (capable). My use of pixels references this historical approach to tile-making while also symbolizing fragmented time and image-making attributes—how micro squares come together to form a macro image or word.

I chose the Eram Botanical Garden in my birthplace of Shiraz, Iran, to imagine the pursuits of my female action figures. Built during the medieval period and expanded in the 19th century, Eram is one of Iran’s nine UNESCO World Heritage gardens. Traditionally, Persian gardens were designed as private spaces that also served political and work-related functions, such as entertaining ambassadors. These historic gardens are representative of diverse and complex architectural, cultural, and contrastingly political environments, offering the potential to explore them beyond their opulent visual aesthetics and healing qualities. On my last visit to Iran, the historic public gardens appeared serene at first glance but gradually revealed a sense of uneasiness as if I was being watched.

Utilizing multimedia and mixed media, including red walls, 3-D saffron crocus sculptures, an Eram Garden floor vinyl plan, hand-made silkscreen and marbling prints, pixel mirrors, CCTV cameras, and the sound of a water fountain, the installation features over twenty pieces. In the installation, I use pixels as tools to visualize the deconstructed Eram Garden and create a fragmented environment, inviting the viewer to experience both harmony and tension simultaneously. Harmony emerges from the consonance of the characters’ actions, the elements of nature, and Kufic word pixel tiles while red introduces the tension, reflecting the surveillance, underlying pressure, and scrutiny faced by women in contemporary Iranian society.

Inspiration and Research

Why Female Characters from Late Medieval Persian Paintings?  Artist Judy Chicago in an interview with Lucy Lippard in May 2001 said: “It took a hundred years before there was sufficient interest in Mary Cassatt’s work to mount a major retrospective. Imagine what it would have meant to us in terms of our understanding of women’s esthetic achievements if we had been able to see and study Mary Cassatt’s sixty-five-foot mural from the 1893 Women’s Building, portraying women passing down the fruits of knowledge to their daughters- probably the first major feminist work of art, actually, or woman-centered work of art. The fact that it was lost to history allowed Mary Cassatt to be portrayed as Degas’s student. Its presence would have posed a constant challenge to that idea. These losses have to stop. And women can stop them.”

Similarly, what if these historic Persian paintings, constructed by male artists in various Iranian dynasties, portrayed women in active and powerful roles? I challenge the representation of women in these historical paintings with the intention of normalizing powerful images and depictions of females in art today.

Why garden scenes? A section of my work revolves around medicinal botany, specifically saffron crocus. As a child, I regularly explored the public botanical gardens in Shiraz, Iran with my grandmother who firmly believed in the healing powers of herbal medicine and the importance of staying connected to the natural world. Public gardens are unique spaces that involve people, plants, and animals, offering a democratic space for all beings. Historic gardens’ layouts typically follow a geometric quadripartite structure with a focal water feature, connecting aqueducts, and surrounding trees and flowers, along with the strategic placement of pavilions in the center with a vista. Water is crucial for its soothing sound, ornamentation as well as irrigation. In Persian gardens, the pavilions and fountains are decorated with mirror works, and geometric or foliage ceramic tiles, creating a harmonious blend with their surroundings. Traditionally, Persian gardens were designed as private spaces that also served political and work-related functions, such as entertaining ambassadors.

All the attributes above make these historic gardens representative of diverse and complex architectural, cultural, and contrastingly political environments, offering potential to explore them beyond their opulent visual aesthetics and healing qualities.

Why Saffron Crocus? Iran cultivates and produces the majority of the world’s saffron crocus and saffron spice, a medicinal plant that has healing properties. Production of 1 kilogram of saffron spice, requires handpicking 150,000 crocus flowers. The labor-intensive harvesting process is mainly done by women, for three weeks, in the late cold fall season in Iran’s northeast each year. Iranian saffron farmers struggle due to suffocating economic sanctions, endemic drought from global warming, and increasing shipping and labor costs. I use saffron as a metaphor for cultural and contemporary economic and agricultural challenges, convolved with ongoing political issues under the theocracy in Iran. The 3-D saffron crocus sculptures included in the installation were manufactured in collaboration with the UCSF Library Makers Lab in the Spring of 2024. The saffron crocus sculptures in hand-made cube vases are modeled after the depiction of the saffron crocus from a 17th-century medicinal botanical book preserved in the UCSF Library’s collection.

Why Pixelated Elements? The tile design was inspired by those found in the Topkapı scroll, a late medieval Iranian document that compiled 114 architectural geometric patterns and tiles composed of Square Kufic scripts, housed at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, Türkiye. Starting in the 12th century, these tiles were composed of small square pieces (pixels) used to create intricate religious words in Kufic script, and motifs such as eight and twelve-pointed stars, on the domes, minarets, or facades of buildings using ceramic tiles. Pixels and grids are also prominent in Iranian crafts and carpet weaving. The unity achieved through these micro pixels, piece by piece, has formed magical macro images of the universe on buildings using ceramic tiles and images of Persian gardens on carpets using wool or silk. I use these word-tiles to facilitate powerful denotation and connotation beyond their harmonic visuals and I continue to repurpose them in my works. In I Will Rise in Slow Accession, I craft my Square Kufic pixel tiles to connote female agency and bodily autonomy using provocative words in Persian, such as Sheer Zan (brave woman), Raha (free), Khod-Mokhtar (autonomous), and Tavaanaa (capable).

My use of pixels references this historical approach to tile-making while also symbolizing fragmented time and image-making attributes—how small squares come together to form an image or word. I decorate some of my tiles and images using pixel mirrors as a reference to the Iranian mirrorwork (Āina-kāri), where geometric, calligraphic, or foliage forms adorn buildings using cut mirrors and create a sense of awe and divinity.

I use the cube to represent a three-dimensional pixel with which I imbue multifaceted significance, encompassing philosophy, geometry, and religion. Cube symbolizes a wide range of meanings, reflecting the complexity of form and our associations with it. In the philosophy of Plato, the cube is a Platonic solid that represents the earth. For me, the cube is also a reminder of the Kaaba (the Muslim holy site).

Context Lost, 2023

Solo Exhibition, Krishna Murthi Gallery, Rothschild Performing Arts Center, San Jose, CA

2023 Dickinson Artist in Residence at Harker School

Context Lost displays existing pieces from my geometry and botanical series in which I incorporate references to my home culture, Iran. Much of Iranian customs, heritage, and values are unknown outside of the country, and geopolitical representation of Iran also serves to obscure and misinterpret it. Because of this, my works are necessarily viewed through an arbitrary syncretic and invented lens. I juxtapose traditional and contemporary art forms as commentary on the intricate interplay between culture and politics. Iran’s history includes much conflict and uncertainty. I seek to introduce and raise questions about the impact of political conflict on Iran’s deep history of scientific, artistic, and cultural achievement, thereby revealing the context that has been lost.

Broken Grid, monotype paper tiles, 2022
The paper tiles created during my residency at MASS MoCA in May 2022 serve as a visual exploration of my native cultural identity and heritage. Drawing inspiration from the Topkapi scroll, a late medieval Iranian document housed at the Topkapi Palace in Türkiye, these tiles feature geometric designs and Square Kufic script that are deeply rooted in Iranian history and architecture. In my process, I deliberately remove these shapes from their original context and symmetrical arrangements and instead, arrange them asymmetrically in distorted grids to reflect on the impact of ongoing political conflicts on Iranian history.

Pixel-Star

Harker School Teaching Residency, 2023

Pantea Karimi worked with 100 students at Harkers, Grades K through 12. Students produced their tile design, creating pixel stars, inspired by medieval Square Kufic methods from Iran.

Research

Images from the Topkapi scroll include geometric shapes for tile designs. Images of the historic medieval buildings that used similar Square Kufic tile designs are found in the Topkapi scroll on their facade. An image of the blocked view of the Hudson River landscape by Persian decorative patterns on the window.  From Olana House in Hudson, NY, which I took in May 2022. I used them as sources of inspiration for the Context Lost series.

cube is NOT geometric, 2022

Solo Exhibition, Mercury 20 Gallery

At the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, MA, during a month artist residency in mid-2022, I developed more in-depth narratives about my work on geometry; I saw my past works in a new light that brought broader identity-politics issues and my voice into the equation as an Iranian-American artist. I was particularly inspired by LeWitt’s Distorted Cubes as well as the eight-pointed and twelve-pointed stars which are identical to those used in historic mosques in Iran. I have been working on these patterns and tiles using research on the Topkapi scroll, a late medieval Iranian architectural document, housed at the Topkapi Palace in Türkiye. Investigating and reading more about Sol LeWitt’s Distorted Cubes, my obsession with the cube re-surfaced but I observed how different my perspective was.

I studied science at school in post-revolutionary Iran, where learning was intertwined with religious indoctrination through teaching the Arabic language and subjects on Islamic traditions and practices. Kaaba was one of the first extensive “geometric” objects I discovered in our religious courses. The word means cube in Arabic and it is the most sacred Islamic site. In our geometry class, the cube was also the first three-dimensional geometric shape I explored and constructed with paper. I made a few production mistakes, and my cube’s vertexes didn’t exactly match, resulting in a “distorted” cube, and being rejected by my teacher. Cube became and has remained a challenging, complex shape to comprehend from geometric, scientific, and religious perspectives. My cube consciously and conscientiously cannot be geometric.

In cube is NOT geometric, by utilizing video, animation, wall drawing, and sculpture, I investigate the cube relevant to my personal experiences in two contexts political and religious. The distorted shadows on the wall under my perfect cubes are reminiscent of LeWitt’s Distorted Cubes.

While I was working on this exhibition, the Iranian women’s protest against compulsory hijab in mid-September 2022 transpired. I was a small child when I had to wear the mandatory hijab at school and other public places in Iran. All these years being outside Iran, I thought I had escaped the coercive force of compulsion but the death of Mahsa Amini at age 22 while in police custody took me back to the first time I was detained, at age 21, on the street by morality police. The disturbing memory of that incident resurfaced and the flashback took me to a very dark, emotional place. As a female artist with firsthand experiences with the morality police, I was compelled to respond and extend my exhibition’s content. On October 6^th, 2022, I asked a friend to donate her hair and I posted a video of her cutting her hair on Instagram which resulted in other women in my local and broader communities expressing their desire to also participate. Consequently, I filmed more volunteer women, mainly non-Iranians, cutting their hair. Their videos with messages of support and solidarity went viral on Instagram. I had two weeks, before the exhibition opening, to create Naked Cube which included the donated hair pieces.

Videos & Stop Motion Animations

Disposable Cubes, four multi-screen videos, 2022

In my early education, the cube was the first shape I learned about in my geometry and religious courses (representing Kabaa, the sacred Muslim site). Videos show me at the MASS MoCA museum, kicking my hand-made cube playfully in front of LeWitt’s wall paintings and on the ground in square grids (outside the museum). LeWitt’s wall paintings include geometric shapes and eight-point stars, which are commonly found on Iran’s historic religious structures. By kicking the cube I reject the geometry and “distorted views“ of myself; protesting my childhood education and life experiences as an Iranian woman. The piece is an homage to Sol Lewitt’s “Distorted Cubes.”

Two of four videos, upon Karimi’s request, were taken by Patricia M. Brace at Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, June 2022
Two videos by Pantea Karimi were recorded at MASS MoCA ground, North Adams, MA, in June 2022.
Permission for filming at Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective at MASS MoCA’s mill building was granted by Sol LeWitt Estate in 2022.

A Preludial Implosion, stop motion animation, 31 seconds, 2022
Two side-by-side stop-motion animations using my hand-made paper cubes express my cultural identity intertwined with religion and politics. I made the twelve-point stars cube with the pattern extracted from a late Medieval Iranian document on geometry, called the Topkapi scroll juxtaposed with the cube representing Kaaba (the Muslim sacred site).
Plato in the dialogue Timaeus c.360 B.C. wrote about Platonic solids in which he associated each of the four classical elements -earth, air, water, and fire- with a regular solid. Earth was associated with the cube.

Video performance: Staged Circumambulation, Nov 19, 2022
Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, CA.   Performers: Martha S., Mel D., Jordan K., Tara D., Jennifer L., Victoria H., Danielle W.

Six of the videos of volunteer women cutting their hair

Volunteer women who donated their hair:
Dr. Ladan, A.  (Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at The San Diego Museum of Art ), Dr. Persis, K. (Neda Nobari Distinguished Chair, Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies @San Francisco State University), Summer B.,   Heather W.,   Joelle B.,    Jordan K.,   Valerie B.,   Sahba S.,  Mahsa V.,   Roya P.,   Anahita B.,   Sara A.,    Fariba B.,   Arezou P.,  Hamideh G.,   Sara T.,   Junko T.,   Johanna P.,  Jennifer L.,   and    Victoria H.

The 10th-century poet Ferdowsi in Shahnameh: Book of Kings, referred to the hero Siavash’s wife cutting “her musky tresses” to grieve for and protest his death.

Stanford University

Print on Purpose, Freedom and Justice for Iranian Women

A printmaking workshop with students in the Print on Purpose course, at Standford University’s d. School occurred on Nov 4, 2022. Karimi was invited to guide a printmaking workshop using trace monotype printmaking to create images of hair as a form of activism and as a visual approach to convey messages. The choice of subject matter, hair, was used as a deliberate and symbolic choice that carries social or cultural significance not only for Iranian women but also for many other cultures around the world. 

Inspiration and Research

Square Kufic is an Arabic script. The script was originally created with bricks and tiles in Iran, during the medieval period, functioning as pixels.
Arabic and Persian languages use similar alphabets but the languages don’t share the same origin. Below are examples of tile patterns and Square Kufic script, functioning as pixels, from the Topkapi scroll, in late medieval Iran.

Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective at the mill building at MASS MoCA in June 2022 and MASS MoCA ground. Distorted Cubes and 8-point and 12-point Stars wall drawings.

In Williams College Museum of Art’s exhibition catalog, David S. Areford writes: “The cube-which was first featured in LeWitt’s structures in 1960s- becomes an incubator for new forms, as well as the site of instability and distortion.”

Saffron, Saint of Spices, 2023 & 2024

The University of California San Francisco Library Artist Residency Project

Solo Exhibition at the Triton Museum of Art, CA, 2023

Installation at Euphrat Museum of Art, CA, 2024

Pantea Karimi was the Artist in Residence at the University of California San Francisco Library, from July 2021 to July 2022. During her residency, Karimi explored the botanical archives, preserved in the library’s Archives and Special Collections. Among all the plant species she studied, the saffron crocus stood out because it has deep roots in Iranian culture, cuisine, and medicine.

To produce 1 kilogram of saffron spice, 150,000 crocus flowers must be hand-picked. The labor-intensive harvesting process is mainly done by women in Iran, for three weeks, in the late fall each year. Iranian saffron farmers struggle due to suffocating economic sanctions, endemic drought due to global warming, and the rise of shipping and labor costs. For Karimi, the above attributes make the saffron a symbol of contemporary economic and agricultural challenges, convolved with ongoing political issues under the theocracy in Iran.

Saffron, Saint Of Spices, a solo exhibition at the Triton Museum of Art in 2023 and Euphrat Museum of Art in 2024 explores the saffron crocus from historic, medicinal, pictorial, and socio-political angles in a religious context. Through various media from bottled saffron extracts, and hand-printed marbling prints to hand-made religious objects, Karimi assigns sainthood to saffron crocus and celebrates this ancient Iranian quintessential spice, visually and conceptually.

This exhibition is funded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and UCSF Library Award.

Videos

The Saffron 3-D sculpture and the upper section of the Triptych were manufactured at the UCSF Library Makers Lab, in collaboration with Scott Drapeau & Jenny Tai, Makers Lab Designers.

Iranian women harvesting saffron crocus in Khorasan province, where 90% of its global production grows. The delicate flower sprouts for just 10 days a year. But its harvest and distributions are now in jeopardy because Iran has been suffering from sanctions and a devastating drought for the past two decades.  Video by Agence France-Presse, Nov 2018.

Pantea Karimi draws a saffron crocus using diluted safflower liquid on paper, 2022. Inspired by the depiction of the saffron crocus from Mattioli’s 16^th c. book at the UCSF Library. Video by Pantea Karimi, March 2022.

The Oddities of Marbling Garden, 2022

Marbled papers decorated manuscripts and books, throughout the history of book-making. Marbling- a plant-based printing method from late medieval Iran- uses natural pigments, solution, and oil. As a printmaker, I have found this old technique as a new “territory” to portray nature from historic, medicinal, visual, and cultural angles in diverse contexts in my work, 

In creating my prints I will treat the patterns as less conventional to allow room for content and additional visual elements. The patterns suggest turmoil and fragmented landscapes alongside the hand-written healing properties of plants in Persian, which have double meanings and cultural connotations.

The name of the series is inspired by the 13th c. manuscript, The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existence (Ajayeb al-Makhluqat va Gharayeb al-Mowjudat) written by Qazwini, the celebrated medieval geographer and natural historian.

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory, 2017-2019

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory installation has been exhibited four times, in a traveling exhibition, in the San Francisco Bay Area between 2017 and 2019. The installation is on view at the San Diego Museum of Art, Sep 2024-Jan 2025.

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory is an immersive installation that integrates elements of nature, history, and sensory experience. The installation features fourteen silk organza strips, thirteen of them adorned with floral patterns derived from the 12th-century Herbal of al-Ghafiqi botanical manuscript. Arranged to form vertical gardens, these printed compositions are both portable and symbolic, embodying the idea of carrying healing botanical gardens that can be folded and opened as needed, emphasizing the importance of connectivity with the natural world.

Accompanied by the soothing sound of a water fountain, aromatic plant extracts on shelves, and a Medicinal Herbal Volvelle (wheel chart) highlighting the healing properties of eight medicinal plants, visitors are encouraged to actively interact with the piece. They can smell aromatic plant extracts from jars or engage with the volvelle to learn about the plant’s medicinal uses. By walking through the suspended vertical garden, participants experience the detailed botanical drawings up close, while listening to the sound of water.

On a personal level, this installation evokes one of the earliest memories of my childhood. My family has deep roots in the southern city of Shiraz, Iran, known for its tradition of using herbal medicine which is still a vital part of people’s daily diet. The Shirazi’s obsession with the power of herbal medicine goes back to the medieval medical practices that recognized the benefits of natural medicine for the human body. Spending time in both traditional drugstores and the gardens of Shiraz with my grandmother, I was deeply influenced by the deep belief in the healing powers of herbal medicine and the importance of staying connected to the natural world. The visual memories of many rows of herbal extract bottles on shelves at the Shiraz bazaar are still vivid to me. During the Revolution of 1979, protests interrupted my idyllic life and caused occasional shutdowns of my elementary school. During a rushed evacuation, I was seriously injured, my blood staining the classroom floor. Having printed the black and white floral patterns at Kala Art Institute in 2017, I added fabric strips of red tulips (symbols of martyrdom in Iran) and bloodstains in 2019.

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory underscores the significance of visual elements in the early science of botany and creates a multisensory connection to nature through the senses of sight, smell, touch, and hearing. It also reveals how a pleasant childhood in Iran became interrupted and “stained” by the Revolution of 1979.

Folding Gardens A Stained Memory

Digital prints on silk organza, rods, and silk threads, each 10’x 24”. Installation: 7.5 x 8 x 10 feet

Medicinal Herbal Volvelle
Silkscreen on metal, wood, and printed text, 24”x 24”
Volvelles are the first paper analog computers from the medieval period, which were made by hand and installed inside scientific manuscripts to offer calculations and to make the manuscripts interactive.

Aroma
Bottles, shelves and plant extracts

Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA, 2019

The San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA, 2024

Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, CA, 2018

Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, 2017

Euphrat Museum of Art, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA, 2017

Research

The illustration of plants are after Herbal of al-Ghafiqi, Medicinal Botanical Manuscript, 12th c., Andalusia. 

The Unbearable Lightness of Mathematics, 2020

Solo Exhibition, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, CA

The exhibition reflects on Karimi’s intensive science training in high school with the aim of becoming a doctor; a goal that she abandoned to pursue an art career.

White and branded footwear, bright-colored socks, backpacks, polished nails, makeup kits, cassettes, and glossy posters of Western celebrities were the forbidden items that kept hundreds of teenage girls—who were otherwise sheathed in full hijabs—at the schoolyard before attending their classes. The long lines and the frustrating process of searching for these items by the school authorities were to assure that everyone conformed to the rules of public life in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The story of coming of age in post-revolutionary Iran is accompanied by the pressure placed on the youth for excelling in mathematics, arguably the most esteemed subject of study.

The Unbearable Lightness of Mathematics is Pantea Karimi’s personal story of four years of science education in the late 80s under the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For this solo exhibition at the Mercury 20 Gallery, Karimi has made a series of mock blackboards animated by chalk-written mathematical formulas topped with the phrase In the Name of God in Persian. The black thread formation and marked spots on the floor are reminders of the long lines in her schoolyard and the atmosphere she experienced every morning before class. Ironically these demarcations are also familiar during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coupled with a few “forbidden” objects mounted in the gallery, Karimi reconstructs her Iran’s science classroom of the 1980s. While a personal story, this exhibition connotes a restrictive educational system that did not leave much room for focused learning or personal explorations. This poignant anxiety is captured through the gradual fading of the contents of the mock blackboards. Mathematics was, indeed, too abstract and aloof to stimulate the articulation of subversive thoughts, artistic sentiments, and socio-political views. Unbearably “light” for the “heavy” environment in which it was taught, mathematics is both the agonizing and the celebrated protagonist in this exhibition.

3Dimensional view of the gallery and the exhibition

Blackboards 1-10, showcases the progression of anxiety through the disappearance of content, animation, 45 seconds

Artful Attacks, 2021

Solo Exhibition, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, CA

Iran, a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is the most peacetime-sanctioned and politically subjugated country in the world. UNSC nuclear-armed states have collectively pressured Iran to abandon many of its NPT rights. The Trump administration declared that suffocating Iran’s economy was an American strategy aimed at triggering a mass uprising. People of Iran, including my family, have been under tremendous pressure because of the sanctions.

In the past few months, while working on my new series, Artful Attacks, I have been preoccupied with thoughts of political pressure and sanctions. The title, Artful Attacks, refers to the mysterious attacks that have targeted Iran’s nuclear site in the historic city of Natanz. This new body of work was shaped organically as a reaction to the coverage of such incidents in the media. As a result, my 42 ft long scroll drawings visualize deconstructed, interrupted, and ambiguously arranged geometric patterns as a metaphor for political pressure and tension.

In my pieces, I have appropriated patterns from a 97-foot late medieval Iranian document called the Topkapi scroll housed at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Türkiye. Pasted at one end to a wooden rod, this paper scroll compiles a collection of 114 rectangle and square geometric architectural drawings and tiling patterns with Kufic script, in black and red inks. The Topkapi scroll is a significant example of the interconnectivity of science and art. In a group of ceramic tiles, I use words that surface in the Iranian press, such as cyberattack, sanctions, nuclear power, covert war, mysterious explosion, and political tension.

Like Kufic geometric ceramic tiles found in both Topkapi scroll and Natanz historic shrines and mosques, my Kufic arrangements are composed in a somewhat undecipherable manner. The choice for the pairing of black and yellow comes from the standard nuclear power logo. Through erasing, blurring, re-drawing, de-coloring, and re-coloring the same patterns, I create new patterns and disturbed surfaces. My large scroll drawings, ceramic Kufic tiles, and performative videos collectively represent both my emotional unease and the constant threats to the historical city of Natanz and its medieval architecture-as an exemplar of the whole Iranian culture and nation.

The words from left to right on the Political Kufic Ceramic Tiles, 2021:

Enfejaar Mashkook in Persian (Suspicious Explosion)
Tanesh Siyaasee in Persian (Political Tension)
Hamleh Cyberee in Persian (Cyber Attack) 
Jang-eh Penhaan in Persian (Covert War)
Tah-reem & Godrat in Persian (Sanctions & Power)
Godrat Hasteh-ee in Persian (Nuclear Power)

Performative Videos

Alter in Every Direction, Part I, II, III, 2021

So much of Iranian history and culture are hidden behind its political identity. In creating my scroll erasure is a rejection of culture and history and is a form of an “attack” to eliminate them. Alter in Every Direction three-part performative videos capture my emotions toward the elimination of Iran’s history and culture.

Research

Imaging the Moon, 2019

Contemporary Iranian Art & the Historical Imagination

UMass Dartmouth, MA, 2020

An exhibition of contemporary Iranian artists reflecting on Iran’s history, politics, and cultural heritage

The inspiration and foundation for Imaging the Moon series stem from two extended visits to the British Library (London, UK) and the Chester Beatty (Dublin, Ireland) undertaken by Karimi in 2018-2019 to study a selection of Persian astronomy manuscripts. The manuscripts in the custodianship of these institutions reveal intricate drawings and explanations about the Moon and stars from a bygone era. In Imaging the Moon, she has appropriated diagrams and images from the medieval archival materials that include the Kitab al-Tafhim by Biruni, Suwar al-kawākib by al-Sufi and Ajayeb al-makhlūqāt by Qazvini.

Karimi has designed her plates as layered compositions of imagery. One layer reveals iconic scientific illustrations found in those early Persian scientists’ manuscripts; another presents her own interpretation and re-creation of astronomical diagrams, most importantly of the Moon. By combining the original, historical images with her own, in Imaging the Moon Karimi aims to create imaginary astronomical pages – a blend of the whimsical and archival. This layering process is her way of preserving these early works of astronomy and opens a door to consulting and collaborating with scientists who are long-gone, and their historical documents.

Research

British Library, London, UK and Chester Beatty, Dublin, Ireland, 2018 and 2019

Countdown: Biruni-Galileo-Apollo, 2019

Solo exhibition at Mercury 20 Gallery

From an early age, Pantea Karimi was intrigued by Persian poetry where the playful use of metaphor sparked her imagination. She felt especially connected to the descriptive verse about astronomical subjects like the Moon. For her, it was magical and accessible, much the same as the night sky, which was mesmerizing from the desert near her hometown of Shiraz in Iran. The image of an oversized Moon left a lasting impression on her.

Karimi’s current research project has given her the opportunity to revisit her childhood obsession with the Moon, this time exploring it from the point of view of science. Her foundation and inspiration for this exhibition stem from a 2018 extended visit at the British Library, London, where Karimi studied the manuscripts of Galileo, the 17th-century Italian physicist and astronomer, and Biruni, the 11th-century Persian astronomer.

In Countdown: Biruni-Galileo-Apollo, Karimi’s multimedia works explore an ancient and enduring fascination with the Moon in science, culture and language, while simultaneously celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission. In these works, Karimi has appropriated ancient diagrams and images from archival materials in the custodianship of the British Library, including the Kitab al-Tafhim by Biruni and De Mundi Sphæra Tractatus Autographus cum Figuris by Galileo. These manuscripts reveal intricate drawings and explanations about the phases of the Moon from these early scientists. She also presents the poems of medieval Persian poets – the most renowned of their day – where the Moon is represented metaphorically and symbolically in verse.

Research

British Library, London, UK, 2018

Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada, 2019

Concept designs for a ceiling installation; a response to the Wagner Carpet

In 2019, I was asked to propose concept designs, as a response to the Wagner Carpet, placed in the center of the Aga Khan Museum gallery, and the museum lobby. I proposed Cloud and Chandelier installations for the gallery and rows of fabric strips for the lobby. Either of the Cloud or Chandelier arrangements is suspended directly above the 17th c. Wagner Garden Carpet in the museum enhances the viewer’s experience and highlights the importance of the garden in Iranian culture.

A grand Persian garden carpet in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland is called the “Wagner Garden Carpet” after a former owner. It is the third-oldest-known Persian garden carpet, dating from the seventeenth century. The weaving technique of the carpet supports an attribution to Kirman in southeastern Iran. 

The Forgotten Women of Science, 2020

A Solo Exhibition at The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

In mid-2018, Pantea Karimi was invited to create a piece about the #MeToo movement for an exhibition in Sacramento, CA, during which The Forgotten Women of Science project was borne.

The Forgotten Women of Science features lesser-acknowledged female scientists, from ancient times to the nineteenth century when the suffrage movement took shape. Through multi-media works, texts and images, I challenge the inadequate recognition of female scientists in historic records by highlighting their names, stories, and achievements. The information for this exhibition is taken from libraries, articles, books, and online sources. I have showcased diverse countries and cultures but still, many names are not represented here, including the Iranian female scientists from the medieval to the nineteenth century. This is due to insufficient or contradictory data that she encountered in my research.

The Other Kind of Embroidery displays the scientific observation of nature and drawings by Mary Ward. As an artist, I have been interested in scientific manuscripts that were illustrated by scientists who had artistic abilities. I relate to Ward’s work both as an artist and a woman. I extracted images from her manuscript, The Microscope, which I studied at the Institute Archives at MIT in 2018. I screen-printed her scientific drawings on fabric, stretched them over embroidery hoops and stitched on the images using gold and silver threads. The circle shapes and hoops reference the microscope eyepiece and field of vision. I painted the hoops in black and white and printed the images with hues, which reflect Ward’s original color scheme in her illustrations. By printing Ward’s scientific drawings on fabric and stitching through them, I aim to bring attention to her scientific work and elaborate drawings through a conventional activity that was assigned to women at the time.

An Introduction showcases nine scientists whose works I found remarkable for their time and circumstances. Many images of early female scientists have not survived or are not suitable for artistic production. Using images I gathered, I digitally illustrated these nine scientists and composed the panels with diagrams, reflecting their scientific works, and their brief life stories. The layout of the panels and colors represent pages of manuscripts and scientific themes. The softness of hues and layered images symbolize their “forgotten” names in our current memories. In some of the panels, parts of their biographies are crossed out as a commentary on the inconsistency of profiles that I found on these women.

Apothecary features 200 bottles containing rolled papers of medical recipes from the medieval period that concern women’s health or beauty. The recipes are taken from the book The Trotula, an English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine (2001), edited and translated by Dr. Monica H. Green. These recipes, written by Trota of Salerno in the 12th c., address various health issues for women using herbs, plants, seeds, animal fat or bone, eggs, and wine, to name a few.

Solo Exhibition, Gallery of ArtFul Medicine

Montefiore Einstein, Bronx, NY, 2022

Lubna of Cordoba at a Collector’s Residence, San Francisco

Research

The Institute Archives & Special Collections at MIT, Cambridge, MA, and
Marsh’s Library, Dublin, Ireland, 2018 and 2019

Medieval Medicinal Botany

Suspended Healing Garden, 2019

Installations at Root Division, San Francisco, CA (2019), The San Diego Museum of Art (2024) and McMullen Museum of Art, Boston, MA, (2025)

10 x 16 x 4 feet

Suspended Healing Garden evokes memories from my upbringing in the city of Shiraz, Iran, known for its herbal medicine tradition. As a child, I spent ample time browsing through the traditional drugstores in Shiraz with my grandmother who firmly believed in the healing power of herbal medicine for all kinds of minor physical and emotional ailments.  The plants in the Suspended Healing Garden are modeled after medicinal plants depicted in the 12th c. Arabic botanical manuscript the Herbal of Al-Ghafiqi. The inverted portrayal of plants is a metaphor for my life as an immigrant; once uprooted, life becomes suspended and things turn upside-down. It takes years to adjust and heal.

Shifting Horizon, 2017

SFMOMA Artists Gallery & Euphrat Museum of Art

Shifting Horizon is an installation of medicinal plants on the wall, composed of various kinds and sizes. The plants’ silhouettes are drafted after the original images in the Herbal, one of the most remarkable medieval botanical manuscripts, composed by the 12th c. Andalusian physician al-Ghafiqi.

Shifting Horizon is both the study of medicinal plants and cultural expression. It is a symbolic representation of the relationship between humans and the natural world and the potential this relationship may present. Such a fascination with the power of herbal medicine has its roots in medieval medical practices that placed great emphasis on the benefits of nature. By contrast, in our modern world, we mainly rely on chemically manufactured substances. The installation uses broken lines to represent our “shifting horizon” and perspective toward nature; plants are represented in black as a metaphor for the dwindling relationship between humans and nature.

The work is in the YouTube collection, SF Bay Area, CA, 2023

Research

The plants in the installations are inspired by healing plant images depicted in the Herbal, a 12th-century Andalusian botanical manuscript, below pages. 

Khayyam-Pascal, 2015

In Khayyam-Pascal installation, I screen-printed layers of binomial coefficient numbers, Khayyam’s mathematical notes, and Sierpiński’s triangle patterns on 360 hand-cut felt triangle and laser-cut triangle wood pieces. The pyramid pattern of my installation resembles the Pascal Triangle; the triangular array of binomial coefficients is named after the 17th-century French mathematician, Blaise Pascal. However, the 12th-century Iranian mathematician and poet, Omar Khayyam, had studied it centuries before Pascal. Through this installation, I pay homage to both mathematicians.

Since 2015, Khayyam-Pascal installation has been exhibited at a few galleries and events at Inspace Curatorial (2015), California State University, Stanislaus (2016),  NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View (2016), and MIT’s Rotch Library (2018).

Visual Thinking: Six Ways of Picturing Knowledge, 2018

Site-Specific solo exhibition @ MIT’s Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning

Visual Thinking: Six Ways of Picturing Knowledge was a multi-media site-specific solo exhibition at MIT’s Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning. On display from September 28 to December 14, 2018, the exhibit featured six bodies of works, some are inspired by a collection of 17th-19th century books housed at MIT’s Rotch Library and The Institute Archives & Special Collections, including The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones, Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo, and The Microscope by Mary Ward.

Sidereal Messenger, Stanford University, 2022

Site-specific commissioned installation

Sidereal Messenger, named after Galileo’s 1610 astronomical treatise, displays a constellation of wooden circles with textual and visual diagrams in the fields of optics and astronomy by Kepler, Tusi, Biruni, Hunain b. Ishaq, Copernicus, and Galileo among others. The commissioned installation by Stanford University, with the theme of Research, combines twenty-five wooden circles (2017) with seven illustrative aluminum pieces (2022) which reference Stanford University’s landmarks and fields of research in astrophysics and cosmology. These new images include the Dish, SLAC, and Hoover tower. The piece was installed in May 2022 at Graduate Residences, Building B, on the Stanford University campus.

Sidereal Messenger, NASA Ames, 2017

Sidereal Messenger is an installation of circle wood panels that form a constellation on the wall. The circles display textual and visual information on medieval and early modern optics and astronomy. The diagrams include those by Kepler, Tusi, Hunain b. Ishaq, the model of the cosmos by Copernicus, and the observation of the Moon by Galileo through his telescope. The overall color palette is inspired by a 2014 Hubble image of the universe.

I created this piece as a site-specific installation for Singularity University’s event at NASA Ames Research Center in 2017.

Research

Healing Garden, Virtual Reality, 2017

Healing Garden is a virtual reality project that I envisioned in 2017. The concept and design are after the medicinal botanical gardens inside the Alhambra Palace in Andalusia, which was the birthplace of the Herbal; the most remarkable manuscripts of medicinal botany in the middle ages, composed by the 12th c. Andalusian physician and scholar al-Ghafiqi. Wearing a VR headset, participants “enter” the Healing Garden, which is a courtyard with white arches, and ten plant beds around a water fountain on a floor that is covered with Moorish tiles. They use their own hands to pick a series of medicinal plants and arrange them in the plant beds. Thus, they create a virtual garden as a metaphor for reconnecting with nature for healing. The plants are modeled after plants’ illustrations in the Herbal. Water and fountains were integral parts of medieval Islamic gardens and palaces of Andalusia. The sound of water fountains and the moving reflections of buildings, trees, and flowers on its rippling surface contributed to a unique, calming experience for the residents. Similarly, in my VR Healing Garden, participants have the opportunity to listen to the sound of the water fountain. The participants can “walk” on the glowing Moorish tiles under the sun and pass through the arcades and enjoy their handcrafted garden from a short distance.

Events

Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, November 2017

Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College, December 2017

Research

Medieval Maps, Waters of Life, Waters of Death, 2016

Waters of Life, Waters of Death, 2016, showcases the silhouettes of the medieval maps of four major bodies of water in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The pieces are accompanied by a video projection of the moving waves. The movements of the waves coming to the shore stand as a metaphor for the plight of the Syrian and Afghan refugees who frequently cross these waters on small, rickety smuggler boats to reach Europe, even at the cost of possibly being drowned. These bodies of water were historically sources of life and prosperity, and they facilitated exchanges of goods and ideas across the Middle East and Europe. Juxtaposing today’s waters against their images in historical times, I allude to the ironic contrast between today’s socio-economic and political circumstances and those of historic times. The silhouettes are modeled after maps in The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes by an 11th c. Arab cartographer and Routes and Realms by Estakhri, a 10th c. geographer and traveler.

Maps: the Caspian Sea, Bosphorus Strait, Gulf of Oman, Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea

Mapping a Gulf: The Persian Gulf and Tour of The Persian Gulf Album, 2016

Mapping a Gulf: The Persian Gulf Map and Tour of The Persian Gulf Album prints explore the history of territorial boundaries of the Persian Gulf regions through medieval maps of the masalik al-mamalik (Routes and Realms) manuscript and the photographic album, Tour of the Persian Gulf, 1916-18. Tour of the Persian Gulf is the photographic album of a British explorer, Rev. Edwin Aubrey Storrs-Fox, who resided in the area to drill oil. In these prints, I am looking at how the body of water, otherwise known as the Persian Gulf, was portrayed in medieval Persian maps, which was drawn in Estakhri’s 10th c. manuscript. The Persian Gulf is an important and strategic body of water, which lies between Iran to the northeast and the Arabian Peninsula to the southwest. I convert the Persian Gulf maps and the human figures of the Tour of the Persian Gulf photos into black silhouettes. By juxtaposing the black silhouettes that emerge from both the album and the maps, I allude to the politicized aspect of such mappings and recordings of the Gulf and aim to create a visual history of this strategic body of water. In these prints, the color black symbolizes oil, and the Persian Gulf water is portrayed in both black and turquoise colors.

Research

The Islamic Document Museum and Malek Library
Tehran, Iran, 2016

Medieval Gadgets, Hybrid Volvelles, 2015

Volvelles are the first paper analog computers from the medieval period, which were made by hand and installed inside the scientific manuscripts to offer different astronomical calculations and to make the manuscripts interactive. The original volvelles used circle shapes fastened to a leaf in the center which held various layers in place so that the discs could spin independently. I create variously-sized Hybrid Volvelles that are composed of geometric shapes using silkscreen, ink, and watercolor on paper disks. I assemble these paper disks on wood panels and connect them with fasteners to allow independent spinning and interactivity. In some, I mix and match Persian, Arab, and European medieval and early modern scientific images and information with the aim to construct historical knowledge of various cultural points of view into one form. For example, in one of my volvelles, I layered Galileo’s manuscript page on the observations of the moon with the eleventh-century Persian astronomer Biruni’s observation of the moon’s diagram.

Research and Process

British Library, London, UK, 2015-2018

The Circulation of Knowledge: Nexus and Lore, 2015

In my silkscreen prints, Nexus, I feature the medieval and early modern Persian, Arab and European scientists who were inspired or influenced by each other’s scholarly research or worked on the same theories in different periods. I present these scientists’ textual works side by side to showcase the circulation of knowledge across different cultures and periods. For example, I place Alhazen’s work, the renowned 11th-century Arab scientist, side by side with the work of Kepler, the renowned 17th-century German scientist. Although 600 years apart, Alhazen’s writings influenced Kepler’s discoveries in the field of optics.

I convert the pages of texts and diagrams of the manuscripts by these scientists into black silhouettes. Acting as a new visual language, these silhouettes present medieval imagery through simplicity and the absence of didactic textual information while offering more compositional opportunities in my work. For creating these black silhouettes, I draw inspiration from the Russian Suprematist artists, El Lissitzky (1890-1941) and Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935). These artists were in search of a style of abstract painting based on geometric shapes, which they believed promoted the supremacy of pure artistic feeling over the depiction of objects. Like Suprematists’ works, my black shapes aim to engage the “pure feelings” of my audience through simplicity and visual forms. I want to explore the ways in which viewers respond to form both visually and conceptually. I utilize mainly black and white to connote our current neglect of such a vibrant flow of information that took place in medieval times.

In Lore, I display the black shapes extracted from Nexus, my silkscreen prints, in a horizontal composition using plexiglass and pins on the wall. The horizontal composition suggests a long-term flow of scientific knowledge and an exchange of ideas across cultures. The color black, again, indicates our current disregard for this long-term exchange. The installation initiates what appears as an organized composition that gradually moves towards systematic disorganization as a commentary on the loss of information, and reinterpretation of scientific concepts.

Research

The Nexus silkscreen prints showcase appropriated versions of images from the following manuscript pages.