Practicing occult sciences publicly, especially for women in Iran, brought negative connotations, in which they are accused of being a charlatan or denounced as irrational. In my practice, by combining fact and fiction and re-figuring the historical narratives, I emphasize the possibility of female empowerment through Islamic occult sciences.
Umm al-Raml, the mother of sand, is a fictional persona that has been developed through performative collaboration with Morehshin Allahyari (Rubin Museum of Art, NY, 2018). This character represents a female prophecy that has been erased throughout history and became visible only digitally.
The 3D model of Umm al-Raml avatar is built on the 3D scan imagery of my own body for this video installation, which has been created through my recent residency at the Banff Centre (Alberta, 2019)
