Beyond the wall...By the Window...
The city is more than a collection of buildings and streets; it is a network of lived experiences embedded in the seemingly silent elements of architecture. Within our cultural memory, the wall and the window extend beyond their physical presence, carrying complex meanings, emotions, and experiences.
In Persian culture, the wall embodies a duality: boundary, separation, and confinement on one hand; sanctuary, security, and protection on the other. During the recent war, this duality became tangible, as the walls of the home came to represent refuge and survival amid the insecurity outside.
The window, traditionally a metaphor for openness, hope, connection, and possibility, underwent an opposite transformation. Once a link between inside and outside, it became a point of vulnerability; glass panes taped against explosions turned a familiar symbol of hope into one of anxiety and threat.
This exhibition begins with this reversal —the wall as security rather than confinement, and the window as risk rather than freedom. Through these opposing yet interconnected elements, it explores shifting cultural, psychological, and social meanings, and our relationship with memory, fear, hope, and the experience of dwelling.