Happy New Year! January 19th and I've only just started my first post for this year. Ok, so I have to admit it - I'm wholly immersed in making new work for the show in Esfahan and in writing a journal article, Tanslating Virginity. The result is that I cant easily get to shows because of time pressure and because there's no more room inside my head to fit other people's work in and I'm not reading because I want to concentrate on writing. That last bit isn't quite true because I am reading Fataneh Farahani's glorious PhD thesis - yes they can be glorious sometimes - it's called, 'Diasporic Narratives of Sexuality: Identity formation among Iranian - Swedish Women.' Swedish Universities publish their theses properly so anyone can read them. This one is from Stockholm University and I warmly recommend it.
So, the pot above is for 'How to Eat a Pomegranate', that's the title of the show. When I'm in Iran, countless numbers of people ask me, 'What do you think of Iran?' The show is my response to this question. The pot pictured above is one of two pots called, 'Forming the Perfect.' Yes, it is a pun on language. I got it from one of my grammar books. I like it because of the reference to the struggle with language and also because it indicates that perfection is formed, rather than being natural. The show's getting increasingly involved with the deep concern that Iranians have with perfection, especially perfect beauty, and the ways they construct it. Fataneh, she of the thesis, took this picture in my studio. I really like it because it shows the scale of the pot well and its relationship to me. I have a very troubled relationship with perfection. So none of my pots will be perfect. This one, for example, is going to have breathe in if it's going to get in the kiln ok. I'll let you know what happens.
