Nowhere Girl

At the age of five, Sara Rahbar fled the Islamic revolution in Iran, walking through knee-deep snow and hiding in caves. Years later, she returned, only to realise that we are all in exile in a way

I remember that day in the spring of 1982 like it was yesterday. The heavy snow, the mountains and the raging wind. I could forget everything but not this. The Iran-Iraq war had just started and the upheaval that followed changed my life. I can still remember the echoes of my grandmother’s voice chanting “Allah o Akbar”. It still plays at the back of my mind like a soft chorus, a stuck record.

I knew we had to leave someday but not like this. In the wake of the gory conflict, my father had desperately wanted to shift to the US. Our immigrant visas had even been approved. But just a few days before we collected them,  the American Embassy in Tehran was blown to bits and we lost all our paperwork. Then the borders were sealed. Those were grim, scary times. In 1982, we escaped. Me, my parents, and my one-year-old brother. I was five years old.

We walked through the night, the four of us, and slept during the day to avoid being seen. We didn’t  dare speak with anyone for fear of detection. Sleep was precious and we slept wherever we would find space and solitude. We walked through snow that came up to our knees. We hid in caves. One day, we realised we had been abandoned by the people leading us through the mountainous trail. That day, we thought we would die.

Somehow, after days and months we made it to the US, but looking back now I know that it is these moments and memories that have led me to become who I am today.

For so long, I was so angry about my past that I wasn’t sure how long it would take to digest and understand it all. My growing up years didn’t do much to erase this pain and anger. I studied a bit in New York and wasted a lot of time as the school that I went to was complete crap. I was also very confused about who I was and what I wanted to do. I never thought that I could survive and be able to support myself by just being an artist. So I studied many other things and did several odd jobs. But I always saved a part of my day to paint and create. 

It is only when I went to London to study that things began to take shape and really fall in place. Life finally happened to me as thoughts, ideas and concepts began to blossom. And in 2005, as soon as my last exam was done, I flew straight to Tehran. Home… I was finally going home. I just couldn’t get there fast enough. I would have run if that would have gotten me there faster than a plane. Living in America all these years felt like a 15-year stay at the Holiday Inn. Even after so many years, it had never felt quite like home. The streets were still foreign to me, nothing felt like it was mine. I just could never relate to anything.

I landed in Tehran, smack in the middle of the 2005 presidential election, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected. I documented the entire election through audio aids and photographs, and also worked as a production coordinator and film photographer on a documentary about the youth of Iran. It was while working on Nobody’s Enemy by Neda Sarmast that I got the opportunity to meet other filmmakers and artists. One project led to another, and I found myself living one half of the year in the US and the other in Iran, working as a freelance photographer. 

Strangely, though, my visits to Iran made me realise that it was no longer my home. Home was nowhere. I felt that I would stay in limbo for the rest of my life, never really belonging anywhere. I found out quite early that because I had left Iran at an early age, I was now considered a foreigner there. And I was considered a foreigner in the US as well. Once that hit me, there was only a sense of detachment and disappointment, and a need to let go and move on with my life.

I slowly began to realise that my search was futile. The time to understand, to identify and relate to something or someone or somewhere was over. The feeling that drove me so compulsively to Tehran, making me restructure my life in such a way that I spent half my year there—that too was over. I decided to accept where I was in life and began to look ahead instead of constantly looking back.

This detachment has had an impact on my work as well. The images I create come from my subconscious; they come from a place that I myself don’t understand at times. But I don’t question that anymore—I have learnt to trust and I let the images lead me forth. Creating these pieces, whether it is my flag series (toggle above to see them) or the installations, comes instinctively to me. It doesn’t always make complete sense and there is no logic to it. But it’s all that I have ever known how to do. It is just one of those inexplicable things. Most of my work is about falling, standing and attempting to survive—our locations, our lives, each other and ourselves.

I believe that in the end, we are all in exile. We are all just visiting and we all come to this earth alone and we leave alone. But while we are here, we try desperately to belong. This idea of trying to sort it all out, and somehow trying to make sense of it all—life, death and all this suffering inbetween—is my work and my life. 

And that’s why I never limit myself to any one medium. I leave myself open to new ways of looking, thinking and working.  At the moment, I am working with textiles and found objects. I guess they are like wall sculptures. But who knows what I will end up working with tomorrow; I always leave room for a possibility to enter.

I know now that I will always move around and never be able to really sit in one place. That is just not my nature. But my questions have been answered and I have moved on from that place that once drew me to my past so obsessively. There is a new chapter in my life now.

As told to Avantika Bhuyan

Sara Rahbar will be displaying her work in New Delhi over 20-23 January at Pragati Maidan as part of the India Art Summit 2011

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