Raha Cheraghzadeh

In the Iranian tradition of mirrorwork (āyina-kāri), this craft developed within the ustād-shāgerd master-apprentice system—a system that, in traditional Iranian architecture, was predominantly male and was passed down from master to apprentice, in practice often from father to son. In this craft, whether in palaces or shrines, the mirror served a specific function: reflecting a center—divine light, royal power, or ultimately the viewer himself, who stands before a mirrored wall and sees his own image reflected at its center. Although Raha draws on the same classical material and the same classical geometric vocabulary, she does not position herself within this masculine lineage. Rather, she can be situated in continuation of Monir Farmanfarmaian’s approach to mirrorwork—an approach that transformed the mirror from an instrument for establishing a center or a single, dominant image into a field for a feminine approach to the craft.

Although Monir Farmanfarmaian works within the same classical geometry in which the triangle is traditionally understood as a symbol of the spirit, she herself sets aside this mystical interpretation. As she has stated, the triangle is concerned more with the effect of geometry on the eye and the body than on the mind and spirit. Her emphasis therefore consciously shifts away from mystical and traditional contemplation toward the viewer’s bodily and visual experience. Raha takes this relationship between body and eye one step further: if, in Monir’s work, this relationship remains one between an individual body and geometric form, in Raha’s work it becomes inherently reciprocal and dependent on the presence of another—the work is not complete without the body of another person.

It is this shift from the individual body to an intersubjective relationship that allows the interaction in Raha’s work to be connected to a feminist standpoint. Within feminist epistemology, truth and meaning are not produced from a neutral, independent, top-down position—which, in feminist theory, often carries a masculine coding—but from a relational position conditioned by the presence of another. By making “interaction” an existential condition of the work, Raha enacts this epistemological principle in the material form of mirrorwork: the meaning of the work does not reside in the object itself, but takes shape in the moment of encounter and relation.

The three works by Raha included in the Continuum Initiative may not, individually and purely on a visual level, be able to substantiate everything I am arguing here. It is important, however, to understand her works in relation to one another and as a body of work. Raha does not create a scattered collection; her works extend into and speak to one another. Each piece, therefore, continues her broader dialogue, which is interactive and centered on the other. Understanding her approach is the reward of following her practice.