Bahar Kamali: Banovan

September 13–October 21, 2023
Student Gallery

Banovan is a photo-based project produced in 2020 that examines the role of photography in how we understand and make personal, familial, and collective memories. Originating in the artist's desire to connect with an inaccessible family history in Iran, the project employs found family snapshots and combines them with images from a popular Iranian women’s magazine published in the 1950s. Layering and juxtaposing the female subjects pictured in the family photographs and on the magazine’s pages, the interventions create a collision of meanings where personal and sociopolitical narratives intersect. The project also addresses the complicated relationships between familial, cultural, and historical contexts that have influenced women’s lives in Iran.