Ghosts of her Migration
BY FEATURED ARTIST: Samira Abbassy
Samira Abbassy, Ghosts of her Migration, two panels, 24 x 36 inches each, oil on panel, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
GHOSTS OF HER MIGRATION
SAMIRA ABBASSY / JAN 2021 / ISSUE 4
I was born in Ahwaz, Iran and moved to London, UK as a child. After graduating from Canterbury College of Art, I showed my work in London for ten years before moving to New York in 1998 to establish and co-found the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and EFA Studios. I currently have a lifetime tenure at EFA Studios in New York, NY.
I chose music and a quote to accompany my diptych, Ghosts of Her Migration, because both reflect the sense of homesickness and displacement conveyed in this piece.
Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 by Salman Rushdie
“To migrate is certainly to lose language and home, to be defined by others, to become invisible or worse, a target; it is to experience deep changes and wrenches in the soul. But the migrant is not simply transformed by his act; he also transforms his new world. Migrants may well become mutants, but it is out of such hybridization that newness can emerge.” (page 210)
“Rumi Poetry / Persian Music and Singing”
performed in Tehran, Iran
Improvisation in Esfehan mode
Concert/Album: Masters of Mysteries
(Khodavandan-e Asrar, aka The Lords of the Secrets)
Tanboor: Sohrab Pournazeri
Vocal: Homayoun Shajarian
Samira Abbassy was born in Ahwaz, Iran and moved to London as a child. After graduating from Canterbury College of Art, she showed her work in London for ten years before moving to New York in 1998. There, she established and co-founded the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and EFA Studios. She currently has a lifetime tenure at EFA Studios. During her thirty year career, her work has been shown internationally in the UK, Europe, the US, and the Middle East. Her work has been acquired for private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, the British Government Art Collection, the Burger Collection, the Donald Rubin collection (Rubin Museum, NY), the Farjam Collection, Dubai, the Devi Foundation, India, the Omid Foundation, Iran, and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery Collection. In 2013, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired The Eternal War Series #2 for their permanent collection, and in 2015, the 12 panel painting was shown alongside pages from the Shah-Nameh manuscripts to which it refers, in the Kevorkian Room, Islamic Dept. Metropolitan Museum of Art. The drawing acquired by the British Museum was shown in 2016 at an International Touring Exhibition: “The Human Image - Masterpieces of Figurative Art From The British Museum.” In 2013, Abbassy was nominated for the Jameel Prize at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. She has been awarded grants and fellowships by: Yaddo, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation, (x2) NYFA, and an artist in residence fellowship at the University of Virginia. Her work was showcased at the 2019 Venice Biennale in the exhibition “She Persists” presented by London-based Heist Gallery. Her exhibitions have been reviewed by numerous publications including by Benjamin Genocchio in the New York Times, Ariella Budek in Newsday, Nisa Qasi in the Financial Times, and the Boston Globe.