Artist Statement

This digital exhibit was created in accordance with Sensory, Affective, Imaginative, Land-Based (SAIL) pedagogy. It was put together while keeping the affordances of the digital medium in mind in order to find creative ways to present scholarly material in the context of a cultural heritage collection.

Different mediums such as photographs, music and video provide a greater breadth of sensory experiences. In areas where the digital platform lacks, such as physicality, the exhibition visitor is prompted with texts in bold. These prompts encourage one to interact with the exhibit through movement and their environment. Visitors are asked to touch, to dance, to act out different parts of the Gilaki Iranian culture. This embodied and sensory mode of learning aims to evoke greater empathy for the cultural practices that are inherently physical and laborious such as dancing, farming, and craftsmanship. 

Certain emotions may come up when learning about the Iranian doll especially within the context of the current treatment of women in Iran. The exhibit does not shy away from the heavy feelings that come up in the face of injustice but instead focuses on the joy radiating from the peoples and the culture. Items in the exhibit are explained with a background on the gender roles of the region but with an emphasis on women. This was done to evoke feelings of joy, hope and resilience. 

The prompts also serve as a device to encourage imagination of what it would be like to live as one of these Gilaki women. Visitors imagine what textures drape their skin, what materials are they using, how they use their bodies and how their bodies harden after repeated labour. Providing a cultural context of the different attitudes towards gender throughout Iran was done to stimulate imaginations of how women’s role in society has changed throughout history and how it can change in the future. 

The exhibit focuses on agricultural practices in the province of Gilan and the products and cultural practices it leads to. Both the clothing and dance lead back to the harvest. The dances are traditionally performed in handmade clothes made of natural materials (silk, cotton) in order to celebrate harvest and the abundance of the land. There is dissonance in the fact that it is illegal for women to dance in public in Iran while there is a cultural export of the traditional practices of its peoples. This exhibition is about a doll who is meant to dance but cannot legally dance on her own soil.