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Dividing her time between the US and Iran, it’s understandable human rights political artist, Sara Rahbar’s work is heavily influenced by mounting tension between the two nations

SURVIVING
When the Iran/Iraq war broke out in 1980, five-year-old Sara Rahbar escaped with her family on foot through the mountains to seek refuge in Turkey en route to a new life in America. She remembers flashes of the experience, walking through snow and treacherous conditions, seeking shelter in caves, hiding from soldiers. This experience started her on a path to educate people about war and revolution, ultimately using art as her vehicle.

BEING IRANIAN/AMERICAN
Meeting Sara by the oversized bronze bull in front of New York’s Wall St, a stone’s throw from the World Trade Centre site, is timely. The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, infamous for making statements denouncing the holocaust, recently made front-page news wishing to visit the site. He was denied on the grounds of being a supporter of terrorism. The bull is monument to America’s force as a super-economic power, apt considering Sara’s stance on the relationship between America and its much publicised “War on Terror”. “The US has been involved in the Middle East for a while now, they build up these monsters. We had democracy and they killed it.”
Arriving in America was not an easy transition for Sara, but it did ignite her fascination with flags and national identity. “I had to get up and salute the American flag. I didn’t want to.
I could barely speak English and I just didn’t understand why I had to do this to something that wasn’t mine. I remember the teacher coming up to me and saying, ‘You have to salute, or you have to leave’.”
While Sara is reluctant to give definitive meanings, she indicates her Oppression series represents relics of a fading Iranian tradition struggling to sustain dominating western and Arabic forces. Sara lives in both the US and Iran, scouring bazaars in Iran for traditional and antique materials then juxtaposing them with elements of the American flag (above left). “When I last went back to Iran, I didn’t recognise it. It’s either Arabic or Westernised. Iran used to have a colour that can’t be seen through black chadors. These are our roots, and they’re dying.”

FINDING MEANING
After starting her career in fashion design, but finding the industry “pretentious”, she went on to study in London at Central Saint Martins and found inspiration. “My teacher encouraged us to look to what was going on in the world. He said ‘Put a glass of water on a shelf and back it up, you get an A. Do a painting the size of this classroom, with no story, you fail.’ He changed my life. I had found my place as a political artist.”
Sitting in front of Sara, she is barely recognisable as the girl wearing the hajib in her photo (below left). A strong advocator of women’s rights, without the constraints of the headdress, she is vivacious, animated and striking. “I don’t recognise myself in those photos and that’s what’s represented. Nationality, religion, it’s a choking force, trying to keep us down. On my last trip to Iran, I felt it was a crime to be a woman. Right now, you are half a man.”

MOVING FORWARD
Sara is about to embark on a human rights tour across America with other artists, with teaching high on her agenda. “I was becoming anti-Iran, because of the abuse in school and the media, but you cannot collapse the government with the people, and I have a responsibility to educate.”
“People say you can’t compare a country where you stone people to death to one you live so comfortably in, like the US. I ask at what cost? I don’t think I have human rights because I have comfort.” Her photo Hosein and Sara (image right) reflects her perspective on war. “It’s nothing new, it’s like marriage, our nature. Clearly it’s just a business.”
Never once bitter or angry, passion is an emotion emanating from Sara as an artist and a powerful orator. “Struggle builds inner strength.” In a strong New York accent, she quips, “Be happy shit happens to you. It’s going to build you. It’s the suffering that’s the choice.”

Words Rebecca Couche

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