Critical Gallery: SEPIDEH RAHAA & ELHAM RAHMATI

SEPIDEH RAHAA & ELHAM RAHMATI:
I APPEAR TO OTHERS, THEY APPEAR TO ME
27 Sept – 20 Oct 2024
Exhibition opening: 26 Sept 2024 from 6 pm to 8 pm
The artists will be present at the opening and during the hanging of the exhibition from 25 to 26 Oct 2024.

Elham Rahmati and Sepideh Rahaa are visual artists based in Helsinki. In their new lines of work, Rahmati and Rahaa use ‘personal’ as a conduit to create visualizations of critical hope. Oppressive systems attempt to leave those engaged in the fights against different forms of injustice feeling as though hope is not only unreasonable but a detriment to any progress. Artistic expressions founded on stubborn critical hope offer a conceptual space in which emerge new possibilities and potentialities to move through with and beyond despair.

‘In my memory of protests, there are instances of protestors comforting me in my distress, offering a cigarette to use to help relieve the irritation caused by tear gas, letting me into their home or shop while running from the police, hugging me after going through a particularly frightening experience, resting together in the public space amid or in the aftermath of the protest—the list goes on. ́–Elham Rahmati

SEPIDEH RAHAA (b. 1981) is an Iranian-born multidisciplinary artist and researcher based in Helsinki. She examines and questions prevailing power structures, social norms and conventions through her work, focusing on womanhood, storytelling and resistance in everyday life. Her aim is to create a space for dialogue. Her work is informed by feminist politics, decolonial and postcolonial theories and practices as well as social and environmental justice. She is also a doctoral student at Aalto University.

Her work has been on display in exhibitions in Europe as well as East and Southwest Asia: Iran, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Sweden , Estonia, Germany (Berlin), Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. In 2024, Rahaa held exhibitions in Kiasma and Lahti Museum of Visual Arts (MALVA), and her work has recently been exhibited at Liverpool Biennial (2023) and Helsinki Biennial (2023). (For those who are curious about her name: Rahaa is a Persian and Kurdish woman’s name which means ‘free person’).

ELHAM RAHMATI (b. 1989, Tehran) is a visual artist, independent curator and editor based in Helsinki. Her work is informed by the disruptive sparks emerging from the intersectional art and culture environs that counter the status quo, aspiring to develop them as springboards for new ways of thinking and working towards hope, liberation, and building internationalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist solidarities. Rahmati has a background in Fine Arts and works with mediums such as painting, drawing and video-installations.

Rahmati is also the co-founder and co-editor of NO NIIN, an independent online monthly magazine at the cusp of art, criticality, and love. In 2019 and 2020, she worked as the curator and producer of the Academy of Moving People & Images (AMPI), an independent film school in Helsinki.

Elham holds an MA in Visual Arts from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze and an MA in Visual Culture, Curating, & Contemporary Art from Aalto University.