Parastoo
Mixed media installation.
Video: 42 min, looping, colour, stereo sound, 16:9;
Materials: cotton string, wood.
Physical Dimensions: 12 ft x 6 ft
Exhibited at Black Box (Concordia University)
Montreal, April 2024
What does “homeland” mean when it is unreachable, imagined, or remembered only in fragments? Parastoo is a mixed-media installation that explores a shared longing for an unattainable homeland, created in collaboration with performance artist Tuba Qurban. The 42-minute video, projected onto hanging cotton strings, depicts a Persian carpet as Tuba braids Pamiri beadwork into it, symbolizing connections to Iranian and Pamiri heritage. Through performance and a fragmented Pamiri poem, the work reflects on displacement, identity, and personal and collective memory. My experience cycling through the Pamir Plateau and finding warmth among the people of Badakhshan resonates with Tuba’s longing for her ancestral land. The video, projected onto dozens of cotton strings, illustrates the erosion of my own memories and sense of identity after nine years in exile. As Tuba braids red-threaded petchaks—objects from her parents’ homeland—into the carpet, she transforms it into a new object, inviting viewers into an intimate story of absence, land, dreams, and grief.