That Lost Folio Vol. I

Morrison Gallery, University of Minnesota, Morris, MN, Winter 2024

In the late Safavid era, Westerners began exploring and exploiting the East, Including Iran. They took numerous artifacts, including illustrated books, with themselves outside of the country, tore the pages from the spine, and sold them in single folios to make a small temporary fortune. These books–and more importantly, the paintings within them that contain valuable information about Iranian culture and history–are now lost forever. That Lost Folio Vol. I is a metaphor for a country that is losing its cultural resources through displacement every day–but this time, not to an outsider’s doing but to insiders in power.