Five paintings, ten life stories, ten souls meeting.
Five artists in Iran visualized their thoughts and feelings on the theme of freedom by painting half a canvas each.
The paintings were then brought to Sweden and finished by five Swedish artists.
By crossing cultural boundaries and building bridges between two countries, the women involved in this project created strong ties and an amazing level of empowerment.
RIGHTS
Maryam and Hero are born in the same country but they are living in two completely different societies with different values and norms.
Both Maryam and Hero are of kurdish origin and they both usually paint kurdish pieces. Therefore, it became natural to continue in that theme in this project. Hero ́s woman is wearing kurdish traditional clothes, dancing a kurdish dance which is the definition of freedom for her. Maryam combined the piece with a kurdish female peshmerga warrior, a woman soldier, as they are strong symbols of freedom.
DESTINY
Malin Mossberg,
Sweden
@malinmoss
Negar Zonoobi,
Iran
@art_of_negarzonoobi
Nature is a strong source of inspiration for both artists.
Negar ́s idea for this painting was that something beautiful could grow out of darkness and clay. The art itself means freedom for her. As soon as Malin got the painting she felt a strong connection to Negar because they both are inspired by and paint nature. Malin works a lot with layers and decided to paint a layer on top of Negars with a sense of transparency, to let Negars colors shine through. The fishes represent the women's meeting with each other.
Freedom is reached by meeting.
SISTERS
Josefine Carlsson, Sweden
@josefinepaints
Saghar Massoudi,
Iran
@sagharmassoudi
For Josefine, it was obvious to paint a sister to Saghars
portrait. A sister standing united by her side. In illustration,
she wants to mirror a woman who has struggled, suffered
and gone through incredibly much, but got out and became incredibly strong. She stands extra steadily on earth, with an enormous strength!
For Josefine, it has meant a lot to collaborate with Saghar, a woman from Iran. With this sisterhood we are all women, women who need to meet, lift and help each other. We come from different cultures, carrying different bag packs but inside we're all alike. And we must remind ourselves of that. We must dare to meet. We are all sisters.
BELIEVE
Nasira Yousefi,
Iran
@nasirayousefi
Sabina Gavrilovic,
Sweden
@arttant
Nasira has created a story about women who have limited freedom. Large thick walls in earthy colors. Small figures in form of women dressed
in long garments. In the lower part of Nasira´s painting you can see a door. A light and the only way to freedom.
Sabina continued this story, by painting the way to freedom, which is both
scary and at the same time, hopeful. A light that follows the carousel that
requires courage to climb on and a dragonfly which symbols the circle of life
and that its time for a change
HOPE
VAGNELIND,
Sweden
@vagnelind
Tala Derangi,
Iran
@talapaint
VAGNELIND is really happy that she got to collaborate with Tala since they're very similar like artists. They have both painted throughout their lives, work fulltime with art, exhibitions and make big murals in public environments. Talas painting is a woman trapped behind Tehran ́s urban silhouette, limited and sad. VAGNELIND wanted to meet
Talas interpretation with a strong and curious woman who dares and believes in herself.
The red feature in VAGNELIND ́s portrait on the left shows the freedom we have here to express ourselves while the red in Talas portrait symbolize violence.
With a total of seven Artdom exhibitions in Europe we attracted thousands of visitors.The exhibition in London were hosted in collaboration with the Swedish Embassy of England.
Unfortunately, the Ministery of Culture in Iran banned the Artdom exhibition in Teheran.The ban served as a grim reminder of the reality that female artists in Iran face, and only made us more determined to continue with the project.
Despite the obstacles, we reached about 20 million people online overnight.The ban is a proof of how art and the subject of women’s rights are still seen as threats and how limited artists are in these countries.
Four of these Artdom artists in Iran came together and created the painting ”Woman”- a strong artwork that holds a message of protesting against women’s limited freedom.Their courage and strength in wanting to change women’s situation inspired other artists to want to join Artdom.
WOMAN
