{"title":"Cover Art Concept","authors":"L. Sorbera, Alma Sinai","doi":"10.1215/15525864-10390611","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"T his, Alma Sinai says of her workWitness, chosen for this issue’s cover, “is the first painting I did as an undergraduate student in 2010, while I was studying fine arts at RISD [Rhode Island School of Design]. A lot has changed since then, but also many things have stayed the same.” I correspondedwith Sinai in the last days of September 2022, during the early days of themass protests that shook Iran in the fall—revolts that,most likely,will be remembered as a feminist revolution. These are, suddenly and again, moving and thrilling times for everyonewho cares aboutwomen’s and human rights, timesfilled with hope, admiration, and fear. That is certainly so for an artist like Sinai,who was born and raised in Iran and studied at Tehran University of Art and then moved to the United States in 2010, and these feelings echoed in our email exchange. “The initial drawings of this painting weremade around the time of the greenmovement in 2009, and now that I’m revisiting it, another big movement is happening with women at its center. I wouldn’t directly link all of these together, but I do think that in some way it corresponds to the overall climate of this momentum.” Sinai thinks of herself as an interdisciplinary artist using printmaking, drawings, videos, and installations as her primary media: “The ideas in my works stem from an interpersonal realm, but they speak out to different individuals and communities that undergo abrupt and suspended situations in various scenarios.” The notions of repetition, entanglement, and being trapped in a certain situation while findingwaystodealwith, resolve, andtransformitare leitmotifs inherwork. InWitness we see a series of entangled headless and limbless female figures building a unified entity,which generates new coping, grappling, and determiningmechanisms.Women are always at the center of Sinai’s work, because she feels that she has a better understanding of women than of men, and a more intimate relation to their psychology.","PeriodicalId":45155,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Middle East Womens Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"110 - 111"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Middle East Womens Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-10390611","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"WOMENS STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
T his, Alma Sinai says of her workWitness, chosen for this issue’s cover, “is the first painting I did as an undergraduate student in 2010, while I was studying fine arts at RISD [Rhode Island School of Design]. A lot has changed since then, but also many things have stayed the same.” I correspondedwith Sinai in the last days of September 2022, during the early days of themass protests that shook Iran in the fall—revolts that,most likely,will be remembered as a feminist revolution. These are, suddenly and again, moving and thrilling times for everyonewho cares aboutwomen’s and human rights, timesfilled with hope, admiration, and fear. That is certainly so for an artist like Sinai,who was born and raised in Iran and studied at Tehran University of Art and then moved to the United States in 2010, and these feelings echoed in our email exchange. “The initial drawings of this painting weremade around the time of the greenmovement in 2009, and now that I’m revisiting it, another big movement is happening with women at its center. I wouldn’t directly link all of these together, but I do think that in some way it corresponds to the overall climate of this momentum.” Sinai thinks of herself as an interdisciplinary artist using printmaking, drawings, videos, and installations as her primary media: “The ideas in my works stem from an interpersonal realm, but they speak out to different individuals and communities that undergo abrupt and suspended situations in various scenarios.” The notions of repetition, entanglement, and being trapped in a certain situation while findingwaystodealwith, resolve, andtransformitare leitmotifs inherwork. InWitness we see a series of entangled headless and limbless female figures building a unified entity,which generates new coping, grappling, and determiningmechanisms.Women are always at the center of Sinai’s work, because she feels that she has a better understanding of women than of men, and a more intimate relation to their psychology.
Alma Sinai在谈到她被选为本期封面的作品《见证》时说,“这是我2010年在罗德岛设计学院学习美术时画的第一幅画。从那时起,情况发生了很大变化,但也有很多事情保持不变。”我在2022年9月的最后几天与Sinai通信,在秋季震撼伊朗的大规模抗议活动的早期,这些起义很可能会被人们铭记为女权主义革命。对于每一个关心妇女和人权的人来说,这是一个突然而激动人心的时刻,充满了希望、钦佩和恐惧。对于像西奈这样的艺术家来说,情况当然如此,他在伊朗出生和长大,在德黑兰艺术大学学习,然后于2010年移居美国,这些感受在我们的电子邮件交流中得到了回应。“这幅画的最初绘画是在2009年绿色运动期间绘制的,现在我重新审视它,另一场以女性为中心的大运动正在发生。我不会直接将所有这些联系在一起,但我确实认为,在某种程度上,它与这一势头的整体氛围相一致。西奈认为自己是一位跨学科的艺术家,将版画、绘画、视频和装置作为她的主要媒介:“我作品中的想法源于一个人际领域,但它们向不同的个人和社区发出声音,这些个人和社区在各种场景中经历了突然和暂停的情况。”,以及被困在某种情况下,同时找到处理、解决和转变工作主题的方法。在《见证》中,我们看到一系列纠缠在一起的无头无肢女性形象构建了一个统一的实体,产生了新的应对、斗争和决定机制。女性始终处于西奈工作的中心,因为她觉得自己对女性的理解比对男性的理解更好,而且与男性的心理关系更密切。