Tina Tarighian:

This piece is about generational trauma and the Iranian Cultural Revolution from Iran to the United States. It depicts my grandmother (left), mother (middle), and myself (right) dealing with different struggles for our time period. The left side is Iran, and the right is America. My mother crosses the diptych as a symbol of her traversal. She holds an American flag that is on fire in Iran, but intact on the American side, which is emblematic of the fine line of recognizing the US’s negative impacts on Iran but having to maintain pro-US sentiments in the face of islamaphobia/ xenophobia. This balance has led to my personal identity crisis. The name of the piece refers to feeling only a fraction of my identity, as well as sounding like a major output of Iran, the Persian rug (in an American accent) which alludes to the “exportation” process of immigration.