Day and Night, 2025

I Will Rise in Slow Accession project, 2024-

I reimagine figures from classical Persian paintings as action-figure guardians to reclaim the female agency erased from historical narratives. The action figure becomes a symbolic protagonist, embodying strength, protection, and collective action. Their appearance references medieval Persian paintings, while also evoking American comic book superheroes, blending my cultural influences. I draw my figures faceless with billowing hair, emphasizing expression over identity.

I interpret the flatness in classical Persian painting as a way of emphasizing spatial awareness, where all elements retain their scale and proportion regardless of position. The absence of a vanishing point suggests visual continuity and invites democratic engagement with space and meaning. This democratic gaze is both an aesthetic and ethical gesture for me. I build upon this principle in my scenes, where figures undertake missions to confront various tensions in pursuit of harmony.

The action figures in the Day and Night series inhabit the cycles of day and night, engaging in various aspects of life and labor. The works underscore the tension between aspiration and oppression while celebrating perseverance in the pursuit of one’s mission.

The works combine painting and drawing with digital and analog printing processes, including marbling, silkscreen, and monotype. Once the imagery is printed, I build up the surface with hand-drawn grids, gold leaf, pixel mirrors, and dry pigments.

Research

These are images that inspired my imagination in the creation of this series. Images include Saffron crocus in bloom, being handpicked by Iranian women, and hand-drawn saffron flowers depicted in 17th-century books from the UCS Library archive. The classical Persian manuscript showcases a scene in a garden, where women are gathered separately from men’s activities. 

So Far. So Close. 2026

I Will Rise in Slow Accession Project, 2024–

I reimagine figures from classical Persian paintings as action-figure guardians to reclaim the female agency erased from historical narratives. The action figure becomes a symbolic protagonist, embodying strength, protection, and collective action. Their appearance references medieval Persian paintings, while also evoking American comic book superheroes, blending my cultural influences. I draw my figures faceless with billowing hair, emphasizing expression over identity.

I interpret the flatness in classical Persian painting as a way of emphasizing spatial awareness, where all elements retain their scale and proportion regardless of position. The absence of a vanishing point suggests visual continuity and invites democratic engagement with space and meaning. This democratic gaze is both an aesthetic and ethical gesture for me. I build upon this principle in my scenes, where figures undertake missions to confront various tensions in pursuit of harmony.

The works in So Far. So Close. were composed during my Makaan artist residency at Minnesota Street Project Foundation in San Francisco (Feb-April 2026).

Tension has always been part of my life since childhood, both so far and so close. During the residency, I found myself responding to the news of war and turmoil in my native country, Iran, where my family members are currently trapped and unable to leave. Images of smoke, fire, and charred keepsakes captured my attention and gradually seeped into my work.

Sonic Shadows, a collaborative sound installation

Pantea Karimi and Scott Kildall

What if Power and Agency had their own sounds? What if light could open a portal where we could examine these capacities? These are the questions Pantea Karimi and Scott Kildall explore in Sonic Shadows. In her current work, Karimi creates a world by reimagining female figures from classical Persian paintings as powerful, autonomous action figures, each given a mythical ability and a mission that repeats. They undertake missions to overcome tensions in pursuit of harmony, with their gestures symbolizing resilience and a call to action. Kildall creates art that transforms hidden data from the natural environment into sound installations and performances. His work produces unpredictable and improvisational choreographies reflecting the ever-changing nature of life itself.

Sonic Shadows is a collaborative sound installation featuring Karimi’s action-figure silhouettes and generative music designed by Kildall. Karimi uses light and gentle airflow to project and animate the shadows of cutout figures suspended from the ceiling on the wall behind them. Light sensors track the shadows’ movement, and software transforms it into a soundscape representing “power” and “agency.” Both artists share a fascination with science and its imaginative potential. The interplay of shadows, light, and action figures’ movements inspires their collaborative vision.

For Karimi, Power and Agency are fluid, allowing space for personal interpretation; for Kildall, the data-driven sounds generated from shadows reveal their own unexpected qualities. Therefore, for them, the sounds of “agency” and “power” take many forms. Sonic Shadows invites visitors to explore their own understanding of these concepts through active listening and personal reflection.

Sonic Shadows, 2025-2026, was developed at Xenoform Labs Residency, San Francisco, Nov-Dec 2025, and presented by Makaan Arts Residency, April 2026.

Plexiglass, fishing line, wood, mirror, sensors and sound, 141 x 42 x 42 inches

Garden of Tension and Harmony, 2024

I Will Rise In Slow Accession project, 2024-

Palo Alto Art Center, CA

This installation was funded by the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation

In this multimedia installation, I transform the garden—a place traditionally associated with serenity—into a site of tension using the color red and surveillance. The installation comprises thirty-seven pieces and draws inspiration from the key elements of classical Persian painting, including figures, vegetation, and text. The layout follows a geometric grid reminiscent of Persian garden designs, with vinyl pathways mapped across the floor. Hand-printed text on the wall features the poem by Iranian poet Simin Behbahani (1927–2014), A Line of Speed and Fire (1981). It was written two years after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, during the early years of Iran’s compulsory hijab policy. Visitors sat in the red garden on the bench, listening to the sound of a water fountain, while sensing the unease of being “surveilled” by CCTV cameras.

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.

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.

Built during the medieval period and expanded in the 19th century, Eram is one of Iran’s nine UNESCO World Heritage gardens.

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 16th-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.

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).

cube is NOT geometric, 2022

Women, Life, Freedom project

Solo Exhibition, Mercury 20 Gallery

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.

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 woman. 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 resurfaced, 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. The Kaaba means cube in Arabic and was one of the first extensive “geometric” objects I discovered in our religious courses. 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 vertices didn’t exactly match, resulting in a “distorted” cube, and it was rejected by my teacher.  The cube became and has remained a challenging, complex shape to comprehend from geometric, scientific, and religious perspectives ever since. My cube consciously and conscientiously cannot be geometric.

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 6th, 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.

Contorted Shadows, three handmade wood cube sculptures, each 12 x 12 x 12 inches, charcoal wall drawings (eight-point stars extracted from the Topkapi scroll), shadows, and hair, 2022.

Three cube sculptures hold charcoal drawings, two of which are the eight-point stars from the Topkapi scroll. While the cubes are perfect, their distorted, elongated shadows on the wall, in various shades, are reminiscent of LeWitt’s Distorted Cubes. The black center in Cube ii symbolically represents the Kaaba, and its net the Christian cross.

Naked Cube, hand-made wood cube sculpture (30 x 30 x 30 inches), tulle veil (10 feet),  hair, fabric, steel rods, and shattered glass

I stitched each donated piece of hair to a black cone-shaped fabric where the hair reveals itself from the narrow bottom end, as a metaphor for the struggle, freedom, and ultimately the agency over bodily autonomy that Iranian women demand. The hair pieces are installed inside an open black cube structure, referencing the Kaaba, laid on broken glass pieces, with a 10-foot-long veil hanging over them from the ceiling, exposing both Iranian women’s struggle and bravery. Naked Cube is dedicated to Iranian women, and my cousin, Sadaf, who was cornered and beaten by the morality police during a protest on October 9th in Shiraz, Iran.

Harvested Braid, a collaboration with Svetlana Gous, 14 feet, October 2022

Videos & Stop-Motion Animation

Disposable Cube, four multi-screen videos, 1:30, 2022

The four multi-screen videos with sound show me at MASS MoCA, playfully engaging with my handmade paper cube in front of Sol LeWitt’s wall paintings. Outside the museum, I circumambulate the square grids and the cube, a quiet ritual that ends unexpectedly. LeWitt’s works feature geometric shapes and eight-pointed stars, motifs commonly found in Iran’s historic religious architecture, significant for their innovative representation of complex mathematical designs. By kicking the cube, I symbolically reject the geometry and the “distorted views” imposed on me because of my birthplace, while also protesting my lived experiences as an Iranian woman in post-revolutionary Iran. The piece serves as an homage to Sol LeWitt’s Distorted Cubes and explores the intersections of cultural identity, scientific and artistic achievements, and their collision with politics and theocracy.

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

A Preludial Implosion, stop-motion animation, 31 seconds, 2022

This stop-motion animation draws on Plato’s Timaeus (c. 360 B.C.), in which each Platonic solid is associated with a classical element, with the cube representing the Earth. It presents two side-by-side stop-motion animations set in different contexts. Using my handmade paper cubes, I explore the intersections of cultural identity, history, and their collision with politics and theocracy. One cube symbolizes cultural identity and scientific endeavor, featuring a twelve-pointed star pattern derived from a late Medieval Iranian scientific document, juxtaposed with a black cube referencing Malevich’s 1915 Black Square as a “sacred icon.” In the video, the cultural cube is shot and destroyed. I created the stop-motion animation using 100 photos of the cube, captured in 1-centimeter increments from the moment it is “shot” to its destruction.

Staged Circumambulation, Video performance, 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.

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?”

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.”

Exploring Healing Saffron Crocus and Women’s Labor

Saffron, Saint of Spices, 2023 & 2024

The University of California, San Francisco Library Fellowship Artist Residency Project

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

Solo Installation at Euphrat Museum of Art, CA, 2024

This exhibition was supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and the UCSF Library Award.

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 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 handprinted marbling to handmade religious objects, Karimi assigns sainthood to saffron crocus and celebrates this ancient Iranian quintessential spice, visually and conceptually.

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.

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory, 2017-2019

The installation was part of a traveling exhibition in the San Francisco Bay Area between 2017 and 2019.

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory was on view at The San Diego Museum of Art, Sep 2024-Jan 2025, as part of Wonders of Creation, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, represented by the Getty and traveled to the McMullen Museum of Art in Boston in 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 designed with floral patterns derived from the 12th-century Herbal of al-Ghafiqi botanical manuscript. 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.

Accompanied by the sound of a water fountain, aromatic plant extracts on shelves, and a Medicinal Herbal Volvelle, 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 installation, participants experience the detailed botanical drawings up close, while listening to the sound of the water fountain.

For each fabric strip, inspired by original images from the facsimile of the Herbal, I created digital drawings of a healing plant and arranged them into a composition like a tangled garden. These textile prints are designed as foldable vertical gardens, symbolizing the ability to carry healing nature wherever one goes.

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 since medieval times. Spending time in both traditional drugstores and the gardens of Shiraz with my grandmother, I was deeply influenced by the belief in the healing powers of herbal medicine and the importance of staying connected to the natural world. The visual memories of herbal extract bottles on shelves at the Shiraz bazaar are still vivid to me.

The 1979 Revolution disrupted my once-idyllic childhood, leading to frequent school closures and unrest. During one chaotic evacuation, I was seriously injured—my blood staining the classroom floor, a moment etched into my memory.

In 2017, during my Kala Art Institute Fellowship residency, I printed the black-and-white floral patterns. Two years later, I added fabric strips of red tulips—symbols of martyrdom in Iran—and bloodstains to mark my childhood experience.

Installation media and dimensions:

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory
Digital prints on silk organza, rods, and silk threads, and the sound of a water fountain, each fabric 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
6 Bottles, shelves and plant extracts. Shelves each 5 x 20 inches

Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA, 2019

Once at Present Exhibition, Curated by Taraneh Hemami and Kevin Chen

The San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA, 2024-2025

As part of Wonders of Creation, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, represented by Getty and curated by Dr. Ladan Akbarnia. 

Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, CA, 2018

Curated by Cathy Kimbal and Patricia Carino

Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, 2017

Curated by Mayumi Hamanaka

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

Curated by Diana Argabrite

Research

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

3-D mockups for the installation at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA
2017

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.

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

Exploring Geometry and Grid through Medieval Square Kufic Script

Artful Attacks, 2021

Solo Exhibition, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, CA

Iran, a Non-Proliferation Treaty member, has been subject to severe sanctions by Western powers for decades. Nuclear development has been used as justification to pressure the government. Artful Attacks refers to the mysterious explosions that targeted Iran’s nuclear site near the historic city of Natanz, home to a 13th-century cultural heritage complex, in 2020 and 2021.

In this project, I appropriate patterns from the Topkapi scroll, a late medieval Iranian document housed at Topkapi Palace in Türkiye. This paper scroll compiles geometric architectural drawings and Square Kufic tiling patterns that resemble QR codes. Natanz’s shrine complex contains Square Kufic ceramic tile patterns similar to those found in the Topkapi scroll.

On six ceramic tiles, I use words that surfaced in the Iranian press, such as cyberattack, sanctions, nuclear power, covert war, mysterious explosion, and political tension. I carefully design these words to substitute the original religious word compositions that I found in the Topkapi Scroll. I also change the colors from blue and terracotta to black and yellow, borrowed from the standard nuclear warning symbol. On my 42-foot scroll, I use charcoal to erase, blur, redraw, decolor, and recolor repeating motifs from the Topkapi Scroll, creating disrupted surfaces that serve as metaphors for political pressure and tension. In creating my scroll, erasure is a rejection of culture and history, and it is a form of an “attack” to eliminate them. Alter in Every Direction, a three-part performative video, captures my emotions toward the elimination of history and culture.

My large scroll, ceramic Kufic tiles, and performative videos reflect both my emotional unease and the threats facing the historic city of Natanz and its medieval architecture. For me, these works speak to the ways political power and conflict can place cultural identity, memory, and heritage at risk.

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

Context Lost, 2022-2023

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

Context Lost displays existing pieces from my geometry 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 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 and a wall installation, 2022
The paper tiles and the wall installation created during my residency at MASS MoCA in May 2022 serve as a visual exploration of the grid, my native cultural identity, and heritage. Drawing inspiration from the Topkapi Scroll, the installation and tiles incorporate grids, geometric motifs, and Square Kufic script 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. 

Research

Topkapi scroll, a late medieval Iranian document housed at the Topkapi Palace in Türkiye. These tiles feature geometric designs and Square Kufic script.

Pasted at one end to a wooden rod, this paper scroll compiles a collection of 114 rectangular 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.

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.

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

Research for these works was supported by a City of San José Arts and Cultural Exchange Grant (Dublin, Ireland) and a Center for Cultural Innovation Travel Grant (London, UK), enabling the study of historical scientific manuscripts at:

British Library, London, UK (2018)
Chester Beatty, Dublin, Ireland (2019)

The Forgotten Women of Science, 2020

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

In mid-2018, I 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 born.

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 I 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. My stitches resemble animals’ hair or skin texture; she observed and recorded them in her manuscript. 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

Suspended Healing Garden, 2019

Montalvo Art Center (2026), Saratoga, CA, curated by Kelly Sicat
The San Diego Museum of Art (2024) and McMullen Museum of Art, Boston, MA (2025): As part of Wonders of Creation, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, represented by the Getty and curated by Dr. Ladan Akbarnia.
Root Division, San Francisco, CA (2019)

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.

I drew plants using digital applications and taught myself how to operate a laser-cutting machine. Over six months, with just two hours of machine access per week, I created 170 paper plants for this installation. I silkscreened original texts from the manuscript, describing the healing properties of plants, on some of the shapes. The shadows evoke delicate plant shadows in a garden.

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.

Installation dimension: 10 x 16 x 4 feet
170 laser-cut paper plants, silkscreen-printed text, fishing line, rods, and shadows.

Research

The plants in the installations are inspired by healing plant images depicted in the Herbal, a 12th-century Andalusian botanical manuscript. I first viewed the digitized version of the manuscript at the Malek Library in Tehran in 2015.

Khayyam-Pascal, 2015

The pyramid pattern of my installation resembles the Pascal Triangle, a triangular array of binomial coefficients 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. I screen-printed binomial coefficient numbers, Khayyam’s mathematical notes, and Sierpiński’s triangle patterns on 360 hand-cut felt triangles and laser-cut wood pieces. 

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), MIT’s Rotch Library (2018) and Krishna Murthi Gallery at Harker School, in San Jose (2023).

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 work, including Khayyam-Pascal installation, and those works that were inspired by a collection of 17th-19th century books housed at MIT’s Rotch Library and The Institute Archives & Special Collections.

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

 UMASS Dartmouth, Sateless, group exhibition

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

New Museum Los Gatos, Waterlines, group exhibition

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 were 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 Document Museum and Malek Library

Tehran, Iran, 2016