Fragmented Narratives

Fragmented Narratives

“Having lived both within and outside of an Islamic identity, I am interested in the contradictory images of women and how they are portrayed through religion.” Shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2019, Maryam Tafakory’s I have Sinned a Rapturous Sin brings together fragments of Forugh Farrokhzad’s poem Sin, as well as images of a male carder preparing cotton for a mattress. The film is set against religious clerics instructing women to suppress their sexual desires.

Incorporating a fragmentary “I” through first-person narrative, a sense of self unfolds in a shifting series of gestures and bodies. Tafakory offers a collage of visual and textual materials that, at times, contradict each other. The spoken and written elements are in perpetual conflict, undoing and rewriting one another.

See the work as part of the Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition, opening at York Art Gallery from 8 March-14 July. Find out more here.

Lead image courtesy the artist.