‘The Seasick’ exhibition shares stories of Iranian refugees arriving by boat

Markela Panegyres spoke to artist Elaheh Mahdavi about her and her brother Arman’s recent exhibition The Seasick, at Gallery 1855 in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide, which explores the plight of Iranian refugees who arrived in Australia by boat, and those they left behind.

Elaheh is a refugee and Arman is currently in Iran. The exhibition reflected their own experiences and those of other Iranian refugees living in the city.

‘The Calling Sea’ by Elaheh and Arman Mahdavi. Photo supplied by the artists. Courtesy Green Left.

by Markela Panegyres, Green Left

Can you tell me how you came up with the title, The Seasick?

The Seasick is also the title of the art collective established by my brother Arman and I. There is a tradition of people from different branches of arts, music and visual art to name their debut album or exhibition after their collective.

Between Myth and Modernity:

On Persian Stories, Identity, and the US-Iran Divide

Ryan Bani Tahmaseb Considers the Enduring Wisdom of Iranian Myths

Courtesy Lit Hub

by Ryan Bani Tahmaseb, Lit Hub

In one of the most tragic stories from Persian mythology, the legendary warrior Rostam unknowingly kills his own son, Sohrab, in battle. Sohrab had grown up estranged from his father, and when the two finally meet, it’s as enemies. Neither knows the other’s identity until it’s too late.

It’s a tragedy built on misrecognition and the failure to truly see the human being across the battlefield.

Earlier this summer, when tensions escalated once again between Iran and the United States, I began thinking about this particular myth. Both nations project strength while speaking in threats, each certain of its own moral superiority. Yet neither one truly sees the other: its history, its culture, its people.

My father, who was born in Tehran, moved to the U.S. with his parents and siblings when he was in elementary school—well before the so-called Iranian Revolution. His father, my grandfather, was an international businessman who leveraged his American friends’ connections.

“What They Had to Conceal”

In this interview, Iranian filmmaker Maryam Tafakory discusses how she abstracts and rewrites post-revolutionary Iranian cinema to reveal the queer bodies and untold stories forced into invisibility

راز دل Razeh-del. Courtesy of the artist and IDA

by Arta Barzanji, International Documentary Association (IDA)

Maryam Tafakory has emerged as one of the most original voices in nonfiction film in recent years, showcasing a body of work that is both consistent in quality and vision while evolving with each entry. Employing essayistic, collage-based, and experimental practices, Tafakory often draws on archival extracts from post-revolutionary Iranian cinema to reflect on not only the repressive political regime under which she came of age, but also the restrictive audiovisual regime that frequently denies the existence and expression of female and queer subjectivities. 

In Irani Bag (2021), a multitude of clips reveal purses and bags as conduits of the impossible touch between men and women on screen. Nazarbazi (2022) examines the play of gazes in Iranian cinema, juxtaposing fragments of stolen glances, recurring sounds, and verses of poetry. The result is an impressionistic collage that forgoes a linearly constructed argument conveyed through voiceover in favor of an accumulation of details, fragments, and suggestions.

Tafakory’s latest works, Mast-del (2023) and Razeh-del (2024), further complicate our relationship with pre-existing sounds and images by abstracting them and releasing latent, hitherto unexpressed affects, trapped within.

In a testament to the hybrid nature of her practice, Tafakory’s work has garnered nearly equal attention in the realms of art, film, and essayistic practices, as evident by the range of publications covering her work: Artforum, ArtReview, and Frieze​; Film Comment, Senses of Cinema, and Filmmaker; Filmexplorer, Non-Fiction, and Found Footage Magazine. Tafakory received the Film London Jarman Award in 2024, the 17th edition of the annual prize, for “showcasing an artistic voice that is both profound and essential.” This interview has been edited.