Morvarid Alavifard
Golden...
Golden signifies the issue of objectification, especially in how humans are homogenized and viewed the parts of a body as objects with those values. In iran the saying that boys have "golden willies" and girls have "flower-like vaginas" perpetuates a culture where men are valued more than women from infancy. My interactive artwork questions this mindset and explores my feelings about that.
Through interactive processes, viewers engage with the artwork, which gradually reveals itself. Beneath the layer of gold leaf, I depict imaginative shapes representing the vagina, combining my thoughts on this subject.
This project seeks to question the value of gold, a material associated with power and strength, yet transformed into a delicate gold leaf. Despite its diminished material value, gold leaf still commands attention and creates an impact.
The project aims to stimulate discourse on how we interact with precious materials, questioning the language and objectification of our bodies. I am open to collaborations with galleries or commissions to further explore these themes
The following written piece was my way of expressing this project:
The time that I knew my vagina is not Gold* enough to do what I want to do because it is a flower, and it was fragile and dying soon. How can we objectify our bodies this way and keep labelling them? what is this labelling telling us? Does it want to take away my freedom and my feeling about how I should be about my body?
With regard to that, I wanted to face my body feel with actual materiality. I put my body with the gold that is too fragile that it is lost its shape with just a touch dissolved to my body and at the same time able to see this private part than usual not to be seen.
When I made them, it gives me pain for a week. The pain and the joy and nervousness, Seeing the beauty and ugliness. Seeing this fragility and strongness, seeing the power and powerless.
I got the glitter of shine on me to create preciousness, but I hated that glitter sticking to me.
I kept running and running from it. I wanted to create my own form from it. so, I start using a black sheet and from that, I use my feet to continue to stand out with the pattern I made by myself. That was a pattern and pat I want to create. I didn’t need the pattern of society.
*(a reference to golden willy in the Persian language when the baby boy is born the mother of the baby has a baby talk to the Baby boy that you have a golden willy and a baby girl which has a flower Vagina).
Golden wall installation
Morvarid explored creating interactions with gold, a material often perceived as unapproachable. She aimed to make gold more accessible to people. Her initial installation was in a university corridor, followed by a placement on the stairs.
Her studies involved observing people's reactions and capturing discussions about her work. Some interactions were documented through camera recordings
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