mourning vessels for wandering hope
Soda-fired ^10 stoneware, found and archieved sound
2024
Mourning Vessels for Wandering Hope reimagines a vessel traditionally associated with mourning and memory—much like the Ashkdan ewer, a container of tears. In this contemporary piece, the vessel is no longer confined to its historical role of preserving sorrow, but instead becomes a symbol of the diasporic experience, where memories of lost homes and fractured identities are captured and transformed through sound.
The artwork uses a sculptural vessel with a long, swan-like neck, reminiscent of the Ashkdan’s tear-shaped opening, but here, it holds not tears, but the resonant echoes of voices, songs, and distant noises, evoking the silent weight of lost hopes. Just as the ewer in Persian folklore was once a conduit for measuring love and longing, Mourning Vessels for Wandering Hope channels the collective grief of displacement, where the sounds of diaspora flow like a forgotten perfume—an essence of what was lost, yet still lingering.
The installation invites viewers into an immersive soundscape, where the flowing sounds from the ewer—like the delicate pouring of rose water—are meant to evoke not only sorrow but also the enduring presence of cultural memory. The swan-necked form of the vessel, with its tear-shaped opening, mirrors the shapes and symbols of the Safavid era, yet its sound, much like the lingering scent of a forgotten flower, is both a lament and a celebration of the resilience that survives even in exile.
In this fusion of tradition and innovation, the artwork asks us to reconsider the role of memory, not as something to be preserved in tears, but as something that continuously flows, transforms, and resounds in new, unspoken ways.