Profile: Sara Rahbar, Iranian-American human rights artist

Sara Rahbar addresses the personal, cultural, and political in her flags, paintings, journals and photographs

US flag by Sara Rahbar

Sara Rahbar was Born in 1976 in Tehran Iran, but Left with her family during the revolution in the beginning of the Iran Iraq war. But having to escape her own country and leave her family behind, left a gap in her. It some how did not seem quit right to have to abandon her home because of a war and a revolution that had nothing to do with her. Through out the years she has killed off dealing with the confusion and anger left in her, and now through her work she is addressing it. she now lives and works between New York and Iran.

Rahbar went on to study fine art in London and design in New York. She has shown in various galleries and museums all over America. Her work has been featured at the Queens Museum of Art in their Biennial show where Rahbar was chosen out of 52 artists to be a teaching artist, and to also do a second piece for the Biennial, where she choose to do a room-sized installation on the subject of war in the Middle East.

Iran flag by Sara Rahbar

She has been a teaching artist for various programs such as; Woman for Afghan Woman , as well as a professional development program for correctional educators at the queens museum of art. Rahbar’s art work has such an educational and healing presence, that is has been used for art therapy workshops, for severely disabled children at the Queens Museum of Art.

She has been an art director for the Persian Arts Festival, as well as a film Photographer and Production Coordinator for a documentary film made about the Iranian youth called “Nobody’s Enemy”. Rahbar has also been a freelance photographer in Iran for several years . Her work has been reviewed and praised in a multitude of prominent publications such as; The New York Times, BBC Persian, Time Out New York, Tehran Magazine, Namak, Radio Farda, Venuszine, Iranian, Persian Mirror, Queens Chronicle, Queens International 2006 Everything All at Once, Vol 3 Oct 2006,PS1 MoMA: Emergency Room, Namak and Payvand .

she has done collaborations with various prominent artists in Iran and in new york, such as; Jaishri Abichandani ( their collaboration was shown at Ps1),Neda Sarmast, Renzo Ortega and Hosein Gourchian.

Rahbar’s work has been featured on , book covers, album covers as well as in encyclopedias and journals.

Oppression by Sara Rahbar

Here is what has been said about Rahbar’s work;

“Sara Rahbar takes an open-eyed awareness to issues surrounding identity, patriotism,and the labeling of individuals or groups by suggesting that we are all a collection of our experiences. On this point she writes, “…with each new layer comes a new memory - perhaps a new identity. They are never left behind, they become our filters. They are always there, and they make up who we become, how we see our selves, and how we see each other.” Beneath concepts of patriotism or allegiance, beyond symbols of unification and the emblems of power is the shared consciousness of ages, of suffering and perseverance.

In her photographic works American Portrait and Terrorist, the mask, the flag, and the associated identity as one who poses a threat represent Rahbar’s filters which form not only our views of the outside world, but are the framework on which we build our understanding of the self and perhaps the issues of worth which are always intimately entwined. She asks for the possibility of assessing our similarities, which run beneath our adherence to ideologies or symbols, and are much older and basic to our consciousness than any division along cultural or political lines. Rahbar seeks a dialogue that transcends difference, toward a more basic and truthful understanding of the shared points of identity that connect us all.”
- Emergence Exhibition Catalogue Content - Robert Jason Fagan: Art Historian/ Art Critic

“Change can come from a government, but it can also come form the people up; that is exactly what Sara is doing. Her art screams freedom for the socially repressed. I am truly moved by what she is up to”.

I think that Sara is taking an extraordinary stand for the Iranian people in the statements she makes through her art. She has done a fantastic job of representing their voices through a wide variety of mediums.”

- Mona Kayhan Persian Arts Festival Founder

“Sara Rahbar is the personification of ‘Norooz’. A fresh young talent with an attitude, she brings an unapologetic edge to Iranian art. Her in-your-face political statement are a reflection of an entire generation of kids that have grown up American, but nevertheless under great suspicion, and with the subtle and not so subtle racism they’ve had to endure. And you don’t have to be a phytologist to understand that. I think that is what she means when she talks about standing up for others, and in doing so she becomes controversial and easily talked about. But...its her less odious work that sets her apart as a genuine artist.”

- Lale Shahparaki-Welsh, Beyond Persia Founder Executive Director

"The exhibit features the work of Contemporary Master Sara Rahbar whose body of work includes complicated, abstract and often political pieces, Rahbar's well-known "Terrorist." However, this special No-Rooz exhibit will feature several of Ms. Rahbar's softer works, the heart of which is her stunning mixed media installation, "Flag," which is a carefully constructed U.S. flag made up of strips of traditional Persian fabrics, the kind usually worn by colourful peasants."

- Lale Shahparaki-Welsh, Beyond Persia Founder Executive Director

"Jaishri Abichandani, continuing to do her own reporting, sought news from Iraq. She contacted by e-mail an artist friend, photographer Sara Rahbar, who is currently travelling in her home country Iran with a female friend. The two were stopped and harassed by police when the friend’s hejab (headscarf) fell off as she sat inside a car. It’s like being caught naked in the west, wrote Rahbar. People are struggling to put food on the table, and don’t have time to worry about a possible war with the US she reported. “Being here shows me how the American media plays tricks on our minds.” “The Iran that once was, the Iran that all Iranians hold in their hearts, still lingers.” A photograph / collage by Rahbar sent in a jpeg file shows a woman’s face with tape covering her eyes and mouth."
- Debora Gilbert P.S.1 MoMA: Emergency Room

"Rahbar's Flag proclaims its political stance immediately."
- Shelley Walker, Artist and Writer, Changing Climate,Changing Colors: 24 Contemporary Muslim Artists 2007

"Sara Rahbar's ambitions for her work are simularly to break down the delineations that divide communities. Rahbar was born in Tehran, Iran and escaped with her family to New York when the revolution began in 1979. After completing studies in art in London she returned to Iran to work on a documentary film on the youth culture of Iran, as well as to document the 2005 presidential elections. For Queens international, she has created a hyper-active specific installation consisting of collaged, culturally charged textiles, emotionally aggressive paintings and reveling photographs of Iranian youth, the presidential elections and other scenes from life in Tehran. The piece evokes the complex and tumultuous life in present-day Iran, countering the western media's one-dimensional portrayal of the country as filled with war-inciting Muslim extremists.

In many ways, Rahbar's work perfectly embodies the subtitle of this year's Queens International-Everything All at Once. Her work has no time for irony and seeks a larger purpose for art, one that isn't obsessed with failure and narcissistic death wishes that have become mannered in too much contemporary art. Instead, like many other artists in the exhibition, she uses her art to engage the audience in a dialog about our status as citizens in a very fragile world. It seems appropriate to end this essay in her words": " I move the focus away from male and female, Muslim and Jewish, American and Iranian, and I look at a bigger picture. There was a time when I was constantly questioning me culture, religion, and my identity. I have finally come to the conclusion that the only thing I want to do is shed these titles that have created so much separation between us. We are all human beings attempting to survive ourselves, our lives, and each other. I don't believe in the boarders and separation created by the devotion toward a flag, a county, or a religion. My intention and my driving force is to focus on our similarities rather our differences."
- Herb Tam
Queens State of Mind, The co-curator of Queens International 2006

“Sara Rahbar, an artist of roughly the same age says, "I never considered myself an immigrant or a woman, only a human being...the only time I feel like a feminist, and remember that I am a woman is when I am in Iran. From the moment I wake up till the end of everyday...I am attempting to prove that I am strong...attempting to claim basic human rights, attempting to get the job done and moving mountains to do so. In America it does not even occur to me that I am a woman, I am independent, and feel that I can do anything a man can do."
- Jaishri Abichandani,

Director of public projects, founder of SWCC, the south Asian Woman's creative Collective,

and a practicing artist.

"Sara Rahbar’s work details the experience of being Iranian-American with a mash-up of U.S. references (the Stars and Stripes) and Iranian ones (textiles, for example), presented through collage, photographs and writing; "
- TimeOut New York

“Queens International: Everything All at Once”. By Kate Lowenstein 2006

"Just inside the entrance, a collaborative installation, “Nobody’s Enemy,” recreates the look of a living room in a Middle East war zone, with walls pockmarked by shrapnel, and furniture and carpets covered with dusty grime

As in “Greater New York” and this year’s Whitney Biennial, war is not left unaddressed by artists like Ms. Rahbar, Andrew Hur, Renzo Ortega, Jiyun Park and the collective Still Present Past."
- New York Times Art & Design Art Review

Queens International 2006 Art From Everywhere, All From Queens By Martha Schwendener

My work addresses identity and the mental representation of objects, particularly flags. Being born in Iran and raised in America and feeling no attachment towards either country and rather seeing myself as boarder-less and with out nationality, race or religion, I question and re-question my identity and my individualism. Its about self dissection and self comprehension, I strongly believe that in the process of understanding one self, we begin to understand others and the world around us.

Through my work I challenge concepts of territory, nationalism, being territorial and patriotic. I question the representation of flags in particular. What they stand for and who they are representing ; lands, people or governments? In my work I recreate and transform the American and the Iranian flag in particular and attempt to dissect, understand and convey their meanings, which they hold in their very fibers.

Cloth and color, symbolizing and representing growth, history and time. Portraying an organized and progressed human race. While all along our number one pass time is still war, how advanced can we possibly be?

I don’t believe in boarders created by the devotion towards a flag, a country, or a religion, the only thing I want to do with these titles that have created so much separation between us, is shed them.

Please visit Sara Rahbar’s web site (www.myspace.com/sararahbar) to see more of her work and find out about her upcoming exhibitions.