Sara Rahbar (Iranian, b. 1976)

Born in Tehran, Sara Rahbar along with her family was forced to leave her homeland during the upheaval that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Trained at the London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, she constantly explores in her works issues of displacement, uprooting, dual culture and trauma that result from her memories of childhood and her split identity. Her signature work, the Flags - a series of 52 assemblage works - revealed her inspirations, Cubism, Bauhaus and Neo-Dada and restored the dialogue between history and aesthetics. The present work symbolically entitled The Beauty of a Moment Condemned and Crucified for Making a Crack in the Wall is a hybrid work made of an accumulation of bags and utensils evoking war and violence; like a classical painting, it is filled with historical and social references. Carefully arranged in an almost therapeutic way, the objects Rahbar has collected throughout years are not about a specific country or war, but rather about pain, violence and human condition.