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Fariba Hajamadi: History is in the Caption
Culver Center of the Arts
June 28, 2025 to March 22, 2026

What roles have sites of cultural display played in reinforcing geopolitical power? How do the stories told through traditional museum collections uphold imperial frameworks—and what happens when those narratives are reimagined? Fariba Hajamadi mines the visual language of cultural institutions through meticulously constructed images that create otherworldly effects and unlikely juxtapositions: a blood-red pool of liquid reflects and distorts the intricate patterns of a centuries-old ornamental tapestry; a mirrored, inverted view—resembling a photographic negative—appears impossibly through twin doorways of the Hagia Sophia.

In addition to these tableaux rendered on canvas and lustrous satin, the exhibition also features a new immersive installation titled Crows, Cranes, and the Sleeping (2025). Together with new sculptural works, it includes a wallpaper design that draws on the aesthetic traditions of Toile de Jouy, reimagined as a contemporary storytelling device. Enveloping the viewer in a layered narrative that blends myth and history, Hajamadi’s pattern depicts scenes from pivotal moments in Iranian history interwoven with fantastical creatures.

Fariba Hajamadi (born in Esfahan, Iran) makes work that investigates displacement, trauma, culture, and gender identity. Her work addresses the technical histories of both photography and painting, stretching the parameters of photography to achieve work of profound emotional resonance. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including at Santa Monica Museum of Art; New Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey; Museum Fridericianum, Kassel; and elsewhere. She earned her BFA at Western Michigan University in 1980, and her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts in 1982.

Fariba Hajamadi: History is in the Caption is curated by Joanna Szupinska, Senior Curator, with support from Hannah Waiters, Curatorial Assistant. Exhibitions at UCR ARTS are supported by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UCR, and by the City of Riverside.

https://ucrarts.ucr.edu/exhibitions/f...

Thumbnail Image: Fariba Hajamadi, Spilled, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.