TWP Interviews: Saman Sajasi, artist & professor

1. How long have you lived in Rhode Island and where were you living before that?

I moved to RI to pursue my masters at RISD in 2012. Originally I moved to Palm Springs at the age of 12 from Tehran Iran, and moved around CA; from Palm Springs to LA, Santa Cruz, Berkeley and final destination has been Providence.

2. While you were studying at RISD, did you feel like you were able to fully represent your own identity through your creative process? 

I was the youngest in my department as a graduate student, and being around students that were much older than me was intimidating and because I have always lived in-between two very different cultures I had to work harder to establish my identity. One of the reasons why I loved my program at RISD was the freedom that we were given to pursue classes in different departments. That allowed me to have the freedom to express myself in different mediums like ceramics and textiles, and through the process understand and learn more about myself and my identity.

3. What is your artwork about? Can you share a photo?
As an Iranian American politics has defined my life. My family moved to America when I was 12 years old. We were a middle class, taxpaying family but we always lived in a limbo. We moved here right after 9/11 and were faced with constant changing immigration laws which stopped us from traveling outside the country. This was very hard on my father who ended up losing his business in Iran, and in 2008 lost his business in America. 

He passed away in 2009 and I found myself immersed more and more in my art, because it was the only constant in my life. My work represents dualities and paradoxes that I face and navigate as an outsider, fighting two battles on two different grounds. While fighting the perception of the west about my identity as an Iranian muslim woman, I am constantly battling with moral, personal, and cultural dilemmas and facing pressure to push the boundaries as a Middle Eastern woman.

The use of the maps gives me a feeling of being grounded, a reminder that I come from a land, a place, a location full of pride. They bring on memories, sense of nostalgia which grounds my soul. After living in america for 16 years and not being accepted, or recognized as a resident, and also being restrained from traveling to my home country has made me very repressed. Through these maps I have found my path, I travel the streets and the memories of the past, regain my heritage and cultural pride and fight the uncertainty, the feelings of being unfaithful to the West or East while living in the cracks and shadows, undocumented.

The patterns represent light, illumination, celebration and targeting. The pattern brings to focus or covers up dualities and conflicts that I face as an Iranian American woman. The use of the perfect geometric shapes represents the pressure and expectations of being a woman while dealing with conflicts of emotional and rational social anxiety and unfaithfulness to any culture.

Through my art I travel the streets, remember the past, regain my cultural heritage and pride, fight the uncertainty and the feeling of being unfaithful to the West or the East while living in-between, in exile. Through the process of making my art, I meditate on the feeling of being alienated, the feeling of being precluded as a person from inhabiting or experiencing a condition of establishment. I work through these feeling while I carve and print my large woodblocks and work towards liberation, not only politically but also self imposed ideologies that I constantly battle as an Iranian American Muslim woman.

I have only had healthcare when I was going to UC Santa Cruz in CA for my bachelors. While RISD does not offer healthcare to their students, since graduating from UCSC I have not had healthcare. Being undocumented and falling in the cracks of political war has made obtaining healthcare a very big problem for me. Its a necessity, and not having healthcare, not being able to see a doctor in the past 10 years brings on constant mental and emotional anxiety. More so now as I am reaching an age where yearly checkups are extremely important.