Dastan Gallery is hosting a series of multimedia installations by Hoda Zarbaf, titled as “Honey, I am home!”
This is the first solo show of the artist. With various installations of the objects, she takes the audience to a surreal and nostalgic walk, which reminds the 80s and 90s of Iran; different installations from objects and details of a modern house, to fabric volumes of nostalgic foods.
In one part of the gallery, there is a white shirt in large size hanged from the ceiling, on which an image from the movement of two hands is projected, and in the other part, there is an old TV with digital game consoles, displaying images of an Atari game. These medias seem to be placed in the installation based on their usage. The carpet in the space may be the first item that reminds home. It can be said that the artist has tried to show in this exhibition how the public quarantine has affected her life; a kind of use of the objects that have a consumerism or entertainment function.
The title of this exhibition clearly refers to the relation of contemporary man with his home; a different experience of staying home in comparison with whatever he has had before in his daily life.
Hoda has altered the writings on the food volumes as she wanted, which might have been due to taking the audiences’ attention to the details. In this series, she has tried to show some stuff that can be found in every house because of entertainment or consumerism. Their large size of some of them also might be because of their importance to the artist.
It is not far-fetched to conclude that by choosing the subject of home, the artist has tried to invite her audiences to pay attention to details and to create distance between objects and their surroundings. What has the potential to keep us happy for long time? The variety of food? Computer games? Watching movies? Or working with our phones?