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| Mahsa Attaran, Sweep It Under the Rug. Courtesy Midbrow. |
Mahsa Attaran's I Still Can See can seem at first like the latest piece in a long lineage of artists putting household objects on a gallery wall — pipes, bananas — and declaring them to be art. Attaran echoes that move, but adds a twist. Perhaps the grater first catches the eye, because the face on that one is the most visible, even if the face itself is half-covered. Then the other faces emerge on each of the other implements. The nod to the hiddenness of the work women do in the kitchen is on the surface. But it also matters where those faces are. On the grater, the face is where the most friction is. On the pan, the face is to the flames. There's violence there, too, oppression, difficulty.
I Still Can See, Attaran writes, is about transforming the objects "into potent symbols that expose the hidden struggles of women. By recontextualizing these familiar items, the work challenges the societal expectation that confines women to domestic roles, revealing how internalized oppression is woven into everyday life. It highlights the unsettling duality of the home: while it is traditionally seen as a sanctuary, for many women it can be a site of danger and threat, where the very spaces meant to nurture become arenas for control and violence. The work also addresses the harsh reality that many women are killed annually by male family members, often under the guise of preserving modesty or asserting ownership over women. This juxtaposition forces viewers to confront the complex interplay between domesticity and violence, urging a reexamination of the power dynamics that shape everyday life."
