minoo emami

War Collection
Since 1997
My work addresses war, trauma, identity, and gender equality through storytelling in multidisciplinary art projects. I examine humanity and the experience of women in patriarchal societies. My work is informed by my biographical and personal points of view and history. In 1997, I initiated my anti-war project, War Collection. In this project which includes paintings, drawings, and sculptures, I reimagined and transformed the permanent consequences of war and its aftermath from my personal life and experiences into art. Prosthetic limbs have been my painting continuous subject for almost 17 years intending to not forget ordinary civilians who paid the price of geopolitical conflicts. Peace March is an ongoing anti-war project that I have started in 2013. This project is a series of three-dimensional works inspired by true stories from the war. Peace March seeks to ameliorate war’s wounding by employing used hand and leg prostheses – as a metaphor – and transforming them into art objects. This project attempts to translate violence into art in a sustained effort to empower women and raise a unified voice against war and violence. In this project, by using diverse artistic modern, and traditional techniques – calligraphy, Persian tiles, tapestry and textiles, traditional woodcuts, mirror patterns, and blown glass – I transform trauma into objects of beauty and resilience. Peace March aims to highlight people’s devastation by the consequences of ongoing wars in the Middle East, especially women, whose role has always been undermined in their societies. Photo by Ali Yazdi