Portfolio

Home Isn't One Place

A textile tribute to the Afghan diaspora

Hangama Amiri

Detail from Still Life with Dressing Table, 2021. Courtesy NADA Miami

the afghan-born artist Hangama Amiri’s vivid, painterly tapestries explore notions of gender, community, and the essence of home. In her work, the most quotidian places and objects—a nail salon, a vanity, a kitchen table—become sites of cultural remembrance and fellowship among women.

Amiri, whose family fled Taliban-ruled Kabul in 1996 and who now lives in the United States, says her work explores the nature of memory after migration and reflects her wish “to continuously paint the untold stories of Afghan women.” A painter by training, Amiri quilts together vibrant fabrics into large-scale, often wall-sized, pieces. She sources many of her textiles from the Afghani-owned shop A. K. Fabric in New York City’s Garment District and collects others on her travels and from her friends. According to Amiri, the variety of these fabrics—and the complexity of their origins—“resonates with how I think about my identity as a fragmented body or geography that connects me to a world of in-betweenness.”

Eugenia Bell

Haji Saleh Zadah Goldsmith, 2020. Courtesy T293 Gallery

Eight Seated Women, 2021. Courtesy Towards Gallery

Night Visit, 2021. Courtesy Towards Gallery

Still Life with Dressing Table, 2021. Courtesy NADA Miami

Sahar Nail Salon 1, 2020. Courtesy T293 Gallery

Still Life with Papers, 2021. Courtesy NADA Miami

Khatool Muhammadzai The Victory is Ours, 2020. Courtesy T293 Gallery

What the Water Told Me, 2021. Courtesy Cooper Cole Gallery

Late by Myself, 2021. Courtesy Cooper Cole Gallery

Made in Afghanistan Rice Sack 2, 2021. Courtesy Albertz Benda

Hangama Amiri holds an MFA from Yale University where she graduated in 2020 from the Painting and Printmaking Department. She received her BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her recent exhibitions include A Homage to Home (2023) at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023), Sharjah, UAE, and Reminiscences (2022) at Union Pacific in London.
Originally published:
March 27, 2023

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