BEHIND THE NET Final Impact by Negar Farajiani, 2014
  • Courtesy of M.I.A Gallery
  • BEHIND THE NET Final Impact by Negar Farajiani, 2014

Negar Farajiani is an electric young artist from Iran, brought to Seattle by M.I.A Gallery. She's showing six quilts, a video, and an enlarged old class photo of her mother with the school's name digitally replaced by an ancient poem extolling Iran's treatment of women.

Farajiani's work is futuristic. She uses slick, industrial fabric you wouldn't want to snuggle. Fabric is a soft medium; she instills it, Trojan-horse-like, with the hardened bodies and expressions of determined female athletes. Iranian female athletes are set upon from all sides; in 2011, the international governing board banned Iran's women's soccer team from the London Olympics qualifying match because the players were forced by their home regime to wear headscarves.

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