Mona Jula

To me as a local person, Kashan always makes sense through its current culture; through the beautiful houses. I had never experienced living in this beautiful architecture before, and I believe these are the beautiful layers on the skin of the city that we present to the guests (tourists) and behind this beautiful curtain, we suffer from and struggle with our contradictions every day.

As a woman and as an artist, I have always been through contradiction when facing Kashan; so much so that it has made several layers of me, and institutionalized much chaos in me. Now that I got a chance to return to my hometown as a guest for a while, I was able to experience Kashan in a different way for some time, and I just realized why Kashan seems calm and pleasant to others, while outside these beautiful houses, everything is in a different manner.

Dark streets, hidden anxieties and constant fears of a woman, and being asked questions that should never be put forward.

The presented project is a self-portrait of me facing my hometown, and now that I have been invited as a guest to the artistic residency, I have placed myself as the subject in relation to the geography wherein I have lived.