For my MFA show, I created an installation that stages a space between public and private, where the body appears both revealed and concealed. Translucent curtains printed with photographic fragments of the body with handwritten Persian text, hang on the windows, filtering light and visibility. While curtains are traditionally used as protective devices that shield and obscure, here they become surfaces of exposure. The body reveals itself through them, shifting from private to public.

Across the curtains, Persian text is handwritten—bābā āb dād “بابا آب داد” (“dad gave bread”), one of the first phrases learned in primary school, is repeated continuously until it dissolves into sound, losing its meaning and becoming a phoneme. Through repetition, language begins to detach from its authority, disrupting its familiarity and undoing its structure.

At the centre sits Lady Lola Lala, a sculptural chair I previously developed. For this installation, I added an exaggerated tongue that spills from the seat and drapes across the floor. The gesture introduces humour and irony, transforming the chair into a mischievous character. By exaggerating bodily references within a functional object, the work plays with ideas of desire, obedience and the performative roles often projected onto feminine bodies.

The folding screen structure introduces another threshold within the installation. Traditionally associated with privacy and domestic interiors, the screen both separates and reveals, creating a space that feels intimate yet performative. Its drawn lines hint at faces and bodies, suggesting observation and self-awareness while subtly echoing the act of looking and being looked at.

Together, these elements construct a staged environment that oscillates between intimacy and display. Through humour, theatricality and spatial layering, the installation reflects my ongoing interest in the body as both subject and material, questioning how it is framed, performed and negotiated within structures of looking.