Salimeh Afsari
10 Jul - 20 Jul, 2025
Statement:
In this series, I explore the complex, multifaceted relationship between mother and child—a bond filled with love and dependency, yet entangled with misunderstanding, silent violence, and suppressed tension.
Private spaces—intimate, semi-psychoanalytic, and at times unsettling—serve as the main setting for these encounters; places where the boundaries between care and control, closeness and escape, blur and intertwine.
Beneath the surface of these images lies an echo of collective anxiety and historical insecurity, as if the hidden tensions between mother and child reflect, on a smaller scale, the chronic fears of a society that has always lived on the edge of crisis, war, and collapse.
The color pink, contrary to its conventional reading as a symbol of softness or femininity, carries emotional intensity, unspoken pressures, and inner unrest—like the quiet terrors embedded in the fabric of our collective psyche.
These narratives stem not only from the position of the child but also from my own unconscious confrontation with the idea of “mother”—a figure that has, at times, embodied both refuge and threat, much like a homeland that nurtures and devours in equal measure.