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

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

San Jose 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. 

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, Silhouette Installations

Suspended Healing Garden, 2019

Installation at Root Division, San Francisco, CA

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 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 Herbal, a 12th-century Andalusian botanical manuscript

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.