Shirazeh Houshiary

These images are made from the layering of words inspired by texts by 13th century Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi. Houshiary has said that the repeated words represent the act of breathing. For her, inhalation and exhalation through the lungs gives a feeling of absence and presence. The prints reveal language as a living organism. The repeated round forms convey a spinning movement, reinforced by the title ‘Round Dance’. For Houshiary, these centrifugal, whirling forces are present in all nature. Round Dance connects culture to nature, and words to biology.