On Sept. 24, Art at Watson unveiled their most recent installation: “In the Name of FREƎDOM” by Azadeh Ghotbi ’91. The installation will be on display until Dec. 15 in Stephen Robert ’62 Hall.
“In the Name of FREƎDOM” was created over a decade and is the product of Ghotbi’s lifelong interest in freedom.
“I’m obsessed with freedom,” she said in an interview with The Herald. The installation features a series of physical pieces that spell the word “freedom,” with interlocking E’s stylized to look like bars to symbolize “all the people who are not free.”
The work also contains a series of stop signs spelling out the word “STOP” in various languages with collaged photos from freedom movements around the world. Ghotbi described the piece as being “like a scream” and a call from every culture for peace.
A series of stop signs spelling out the words “STOP” in various languages with collaged photos from freedom movements around the world.
The work also draws from Ghotbi’s own name, Azadeh — which means “free-spirited” in Persian — and her personal heritage. Ghotbi emigrated from Iran at the age of nine during the Iranian Revolution and went on to study international relations at Brown.
Ghotbi said she has always been interested in international policy because she is “a product of multiculturalism.”
Her experiences at Brown — both in international relations and the art program — have also been influential in her life and work.
Ghotbi recalled attending an art history lecture at Brown that covered the political influence of Jackson Pollock’s paintings. She emerged from the class “feeling elated.” Ghotbi credits this moment as the beginning of her journey as an artist: She went straight to buy art supplies after class.
“Weaves of Freedom,” the next work in the exhibit and a product of Ghotbi’s studies, is an ode to women’s acts of civil disobedience and an indelible thirst for freedom.
A series of physical pieces that spell the word “Freedom,” with interlocking E’s stylized to look like bars to symbolize “all the people who are not free.”
It’s a statement about “the multiplicity of the Iranian women’s movement,” said Jo-Anne Hart, exhibit curator and Ghotbi’s former professor. The piece is a woven collage of Iranian women who Ghotbi said were an “extraordinary lesson in bravery.”
Hart called the installation a continuation of the Watson School of International and Public Affairs’s commitment to presenting thought-provoking art that shares perspectives from around the world. “I’m so grateful that Watson has included art as an expression, and an invitation and a way to compel people to think about complex issues,” Hart said.
The third work in the installation, “Interwoven,” is related to struggles for freedom in a place where Ghotbi herself has never lived — the Palestinian territories and Israel. It is a woven collage piece containing images of Palestinians and Israelis, calling urgently for each group’s right “to live, to peace, to take care of their children,” Ghotbi said.
Ghotbi said she “can’t think of a better place in the world” for her art to be shown than the Watson School. She described Brown students as the next soldiers in a never-ending battle for freedom, both on and off campus.
“I’m hoping to trigger dialogue between students, and between students and professors,” she added.
