ANIMAL POWER

Shattered at Harvard Art Museums

The Harvard Art Museums are currently presenting works from my Shattered series on view in the Islamic Art Gallery until October 2026. This presentation brings together a compelling selection of objects that explore the symbolic, spiritual, and narrative roles animals have played across cultures and centuries.

At the center of this installation is a remarkable 16th-century Persian carpet depicting various hunting animals, surrounded by sculptural ceramic and metal works from Iran dating from the 12th to 19th centuries, which are thought to be nonexistent or forbidden in Islamic culture today. Within this historic constellation, my contemporary glass birds—delicate, fragmentary, and meditations on displacement and resilience—offer a poignant counterpoint. Their presence weaves the contemporary with the historical, expanding the dialogue between survival, fragility, and the enduring visual language of animals in sculptural form across time.

Medallion and animal carpet, Iran, 16th Century; Tile with horseman feeding Simurgh, Iran, c. 1860; Pigeon, Iran 19th-20th century; Shattered glass birds, Turkey, 2023; Pair of roosters, Iran 19th-20th century; Ceramic hawk, Iran, 13th century; Two lion-shaped legs of a vessel, Eastern Iran or Afghanistan, 12th century; Bovine pitcher, Iran, 13th century; Lion statuette,Iran, 13th Century

Inspired by a profound desire for healing and renewal, Shattered draws on the emotional landscape shaped by natural disasters and the ongoing conflicts affecting the Middle East. The gold-painted seams on the birds reference acts of repair—echoing kintsugi-like gestures—where breaks are not hidden but transformed into visible markers of survival. For me, these gilded lines become pathways of care, restoring fractured forms in the wake of violence, loss, and upheaval.

The inclusion of Shattered in this rotation situates my practice within a broader lineage of material culture, making visible the ways in which personal and collective histories intersect through form, craft, and symbolism. The installation underscores how contemporary artworks can illuminate—and be illuminated by—objects from deeper historical traditions.

For me, the display of Shattered within this context aligns closely with the questions central to my work: how memory is held in materials, how fragility becomes a site of reflection, and how narratives of migration and repair can be reframed through the language of glass.