In “Mastouri” project, developed in collaboration with Diza Platform, Nahid Behboodian analogizes fashion with the cycle of evolution and survival of flowers, exhibiting an installation of the poisonous flowers’ horrific panache in the space of Mohsen Projects. Flowers are the reproductive system of plants and pollination is how they procreate. During this process, when flowers need other creatures for survival, they turn into their most beautiful and captivating form. Just like fashion that has carved a niche in people’s lives through seduction for years. Fashion is a possibility that makes art wearable and practical in everyday life.Flowers have captivated Nahid for more than a decade: they have become the main language of artistic creation in her interdisciplinary ventures, in both visual arts and fashion. In her previous shows, she wielded flowers as a tool to touch and communicate with others; something a flower would do to other creatures.///

She identifies with flowers and their hidden nature. It may well be that she sees flowers as role models; as examples for communication, influence, and survival.In Pasio, an imprisoned flower resorts to any trickery to survive: the mesmerizing proliferation of colorful buds roots, the stunning scattering of luminous seeds, and the efforts of petals to occupy a larger space. In Nahid’s studio, reconstructed in one of the rooms, we take a glance at her practice and activities, constantly documenting how fashion is sending forth its roots in everyday urban life which is analogous to flowers’ pollination. Presented in this room against an urban background, the headdresses, the starting point of the “Mastouri” project, are inspired by flowers that deceive other creatures into their poisonous presence. In the “Fitting Room,” the entrapment is experienced in a more tangible way, as the audience find themselves entangled in the flower’s cunning strategy for survival. In another room, the process of documenting and developing this collaborative project can be seen, captured with the help of a number of Iranian fashion designers, and with Alireza Fani’s photography. It is about how an abandoned building turns into the very ashes from which flowers sprouted thousands of years ago; a context for watching sustainable beauty.Each one of Nahid’s projects is a link in the endless chain of her fascination with flowers. Similar to the flowers’ blooming season, she reemerges from her shell-like coat through her artistic creation in every period of her career, in order to make another display of the eternal cycle of life and death, and to leave a mark on the soil.