A thousand canaries fall silent in my throat

The installation of eight pieces of canvas on wood panels. This installation is inspired by Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The mood of the story and the red color were a significant reminder to all the difficulties of being a woman. How has society treated you as a woman? What is the situation now?

I began writing parts of the story with a black marker on canvas. Throughout the process of writing these words, it felt like I was experiencing the story alone, and my empathy for the characters grew. The bright and dark spots of the story were familiar. I believe women the world over have experienced similar fears and common pains that, like innumerable needles tracing as many canvases, have been carved onto their souls and into their bodies.

The written parts on canvas are like writing about all the pains and issues common to women, written in a female language. A language from the distant past. The speed and the pressure of the needle on the canvas, amassing threads in some points and floating red threads in others, for me, evoke a time unbound from things and places. With this hard-fought freedom, we are looking for another point on our collective canvas from which to continue strongly.

I installed the canvas works on a piece of pale pink wood, separated by negative space. On the panels, I used trending women's rights hashtags in Persian from Iranian’s social media outlets. Within the negative space between the canvas and the wood, viewers can discover these hashtags that foster intercultural conversation with the texts from The Handmaid’s Tale.     

In fact, the pieces of canvas go beyond a single space, and become an intersection of identity and culture, providing room for dialogue regardless of any race and culture. A room for art and literature conversation.

A thousand canaries, fall silent in my throat, New York, 2019 © Negin Mahzoun