14 INTHEARTS | WINTER 2024“Art is my home,country and religion.I strive to weave anetwork within it,where my thoughts,emotions, andexperiences interlacewith the movement ofthe world around me.”– Golnaz Payani
1. Briefly describe the work you do.I am a visual artist who explores various mediums, with a specific focus onfabric. In creating my artworks, I meticulously unravel the fabric, removingsections of the weft or warp, utilizing destruction as a tool for creation.My upbringing was in an environment where the constant threat of suddendestruction lingered. The possibility of war resuming, a major earthquake,or the volcanic eruption of Damavand could wipe out everything in Tehranovernight. Despite these warnings, we were encouraged to pursue education,attend university, and build our lives. In my artistic practice, I reflect on thisprocess through the technique of unraveling, symbolizing the marriage ofdestruction and construction. Through the method of unweaving, I disruptand weaken the smooth surface of the fabric, resulting in more or lessabstract shapes. Additionally, I aim to convey concepts such as the body atwork and the duration of labor through this meticulous process. The themethat captivates me is the trace. I am passionate about revealing elementsthat persist and resist the passage of time. The power of the trace extracts amoment from the past, making it more visible than anything surrounding us.This force blurs the line between the present and the past, the visible and theinvisible, the appearance and the disappearance. For this reason, I becameinterested in working with fabric. The versatile nature of textiles, capableof both concealing and revealing, fascinates me. Textiles serve as both aboundary and a connection, representing us by covering us.2. What or who inspires your work and how has thatinfluenced both your work and your identity as an artist?It’s partly my work at the studio that inspires me. Often, what I had planneddoesn’t unfold as expected. Deleuze stated that “having an idea” is acelebration for artists; for me, it’s the so-called “happy mistake” that marksthe celebration. It allows me to discover new paths and forms. StephenHawking noted that man is the product of nature’s mistakes. I believe in that– to create, there must be an element of error, provoking surprise to achievesomething new. My work is also influenced by photos, flea markets, andreal and fictional stories. I am particularly sensitive to films, with Tarkovskybeing the artist who influenced me the most, both through his films andthe atmospheres he creates, as well as his book “Sculpting in Time.” Artistslike Chantal Akerman, Abbas Kiarostami, Bela Tarr, etc., have also left animpact on me. Moreover, philosophical, psychological, or scientific ideasintroduce me to a new vocabulary and influence my visual language, aswell as enriching my spoken language. Concepts such as the importance ofexperience in phenomenology, the resilience concept in psychology, the wayAlzheimer’s patients remember things, or how we “perceive” color allow meto explore the meaning of “trace” from various perspectives.3. Making Art traditionally carry cultural, historical, orpersonal narratives. How do you incorporate these narrativesin your contemporary pieces?I was born in 1986, during the Iran-Iraq war. The following years were markedby the dissemination of lists of missing persons. I remember the buses thatbrought back soldiers declared missing, the empty graves, the fragmentedbodies, and the photos and objects that were all that was left of a person—relics taking the place of a son or a father in a family. These disappearancestook various forms in Iran, affecting not only political figures but alsoeveryday aspects, imposed by adults’ injunction to silence, forcing childrento keep their daily lives hidden. Celebrations such as birthdays, weddings,and gatherings took place in secret, away from prying eyes. My childhoodwas a constant conflict between ostensible appearance and invisibleprivate. At 15, I was forced to wear the veil, changing my relationship withfabric. For someone who loved playing with fabric scraps collected from mygrandmother, they became objects of oppression. Wonderful, tangible, andmulticolored toys turned into a uniform erasing all traits of my personality.My departure for France in 2009 had a significant influence on my artisticwork. Upon arrival, I found myself alone in a completely new context, farfrom family, friends, and everything I had known before. That’s when I feltlike I was the trace of my past life for the first time. I developed an interest inwhat was now out of sight, disappeared, and invisible, rekindling my love forfabric.4. Do you aim for a particular emotional or sensoryexperience in audience interaction with your pieces,considering that textiles or mixed media artworks can evokea tactile response?My textile works are not meant to be handled, but I never use distancingbarriers, even for my large-scale pieces. I aim to provoke in the spectatorthe desire to approach, to look closely, and even the desire to touch them.This closeness and desire help elevate the question of the body and itsexperience. Since, with my works, I aim to evoke manual labor and thepresence of “my body” at work.5. Given that textiles and mixed media often generateresiduals, how do you specifically approach sustainabilityand work to minimize environmental impact in your artisticpractice?In the work “All That Remains,” soon to be exhibited at my solo show at theAlexandra David Neel Museum, I showcase all the threads I removed fromthe pieces presented in this exhibition. Actually, the theme of “what remains”and the connection between “destruction and creation” are at the heartof my work. Not only to raise awareness about “residue and recycling” butespecially to illustrate two crucial concepts for me regarding disappearanceand time. I believe that nothing ever truly disappears, even if it is currentlyoutside of our sight, invisible to the eye, or even forgotten! I think we infinitelyretain everything we have experienced, seen, and felt. And I believe thisillustrates the circle of time, a more or less repetitive cylindrical movement,a thought that believes in layers of consciousness and unconsciousness,accumulating upon each other and transmitted from generation togeneration.6. Get inspired!INSTAGRAM: @golnazpayaniWEBSITE: golnazpayani.comINTHEARTS | WINTER 2024 15