Sepideh Rahaa is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and educator based in Helsinki.
2023 Biennial Year Find out more
Through her practice, she actively investigates and questions prevailing power structures, social norms and conventions while focusing on womanhood, storytelling and everyday resistances. Currently she is pursuing her doctoral studies in Contemporary Art at Aalto University. Her interests are silenced histories, decolonisation, feminist politics and post-migration matters. She seeks these interests through collaborative ongoing projects such as A Dream That Came True? (2016-2021). Her aim is to initiate methods through contemporary art to create spaces for dialogue. Rahaa’s artistic practice combines different disciplines including film and video installation, performance art, painting, poetry and photography.
Her work has been exhibited and screened in Europe, East Asia and Southwest Asia (politically known as Middle East): Iran, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Germany (Berlin), Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. To name a few, she exhibited at Rauma Art Museum for the Rauma Triennale 2022, Artsi Art Museum 2021, Pori Art Museum 2019. Rahaa is an active member and co-founder of Third Space collective in Helsinki (2015-) and holds a BA in Painting and Visual Arts and an MA in Art and Research from Shahed University of Tehran, and a second MA in Fine Arts at Aalto University.
Her work has been supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation (SuomenKulttuurirahasto), Taike (Arts Promotion Center Finland), Frame Contemporary Art Finland, AVEK (The Finnish Promotion Center for Audiovisual Culture), Nylands Svenska Kulturfonds and Visek Kuvasto (copyright society for visual artists).
Liverpool Biennial 2023
'Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds' (2022)
In ‘Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds’ Sepideh Rahaa portrays the poetic but often invisible and inaccessible process of rice cultivation in the paddy lands of Mazandaran, Northern Iran. The process – which takes almost a year – is an intergenerational tradition, with knowledge being passed down for nearly a century through the artist’s family.
Rahaa expands this familial history, where women play an integral role, to contemporary lives, where strong visual narratives are intertwined with local songs sung by Iranian women. The songs contain stories of their daily struggles in Mazani (an indigenous language from Northern Iran) and are passed from grandmothers to mothers and daughters to be sung during the cultivation and harvest seasons. This poetic narrative connects cultures,
In ‘Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds’ Sepideh Rahaa portrays the poetic but often invisible and inaccessible process of rice cultivation in the paddy lands of Mazandaran, Northern Iran. The process – which takes almost a year – is an intergenerational tradition, with knowledge being passed down for nearly a century through the artist’s family. Rahaa expands this familial history, where women play an integral role, to contemporary lives, where strong visual narratives are intertwined with local songs sung by Iranian women. The songs contain stories of their daily struggles in Mazani (an indigenous language from Northern Iran) and are passed from grandmothers to mothers and daughters to be sung during the cultivation and harvest seasons. This poetic narrative connects cultures, languages, geographies, politics and people, whilst questioning power structures and positioning women’s labour as an everyday resistance. Rahaa lays bare the often invisible and inaccessible process of rice cultivation and invites us to consider how this complex and layered farming of a global food staple is intertwined with contemporary cycles of consumption. The work highlights food politics – particularly how Iranian farmers are forced by sanctions to use toxic chemical fertilisers – and speaks to social and environmental injustice. During the harvest season, it is customary to collect and put together a handful of rice plant clusters and hang it on the wall. Often taking the form of a doll, it is believed to symbolise prosperity and abundance both for the household and for the paddy land. Historically, farmers would use an ox for land preparation, and, as a respectful gesture, would name the rice doll after the animal as ‘Verza Mashte’, literally meaning ‘a fist of rice’ – the product of the animal’s work. Some would keep the doll and feed it to the ox at the beginning of the cultivation season in Spring, others would put the doll in water until green shoots appeared, then use it in their new year (Nowruz) table setting in March. The rice used in this doll is Tarom Hashemi which is the grain being cultivated in the video work. This doll is made by Huri Kolivand in collaboration with Kashan Doll Museum and Gileh Boom in Iran. Supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR), Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland and Frame Contemporary Art Finland. Courtesy of the artist. Showing at Cotton Exchange
'Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds' (2022)
Showing at Cotton Exchange
Wednesday to Sunday 10:00am-6:00pm-
Sepideh Rahaa, Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds, 2022. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Sepideh Rahaa, Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds, 2022. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Sepideh Rahaa, Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds, 2022. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Sepideh Rahaa, Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds, 2022. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Cotton Exchange. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
