Farwa Tahir

Graphite drawing on arches paper

115cm x 180cm

This work explores themes of memory, identity, and the passage of time, centering on the figure of an elderly woman rendered with layered, double-exposed imagery. The duplication and shifting of her features evoke the fragmentation of memory and the complexity of lived experience, particularly within intergenerational and diasporic contexts. The meticulous depiction of her patterned dress contrasts with the spectral overlay of her face and hands, suggesting both presence and absence—an embodiment of fading histories, resilience, and the quiet endurance of matriarchal memory. The work invites reflection on aging, visibility, and the layered narratives carried within the body. The distortion evokes a sense of memory, time, and presence, as if the figure exists in multiple moments at once. The expression on her face is calm yet intense, conveying strength, resilience, and reflection. The background is plain, drawing full attention to her presence.

This deeply personal work explores the intersection of collective memory and intimate generational connectedness. This image captures a layered meditation on inheritance, memory, and identity through the intimate gesture of the artist’s daughter wearing her great-grandmother’s dupatta, creating a poignant visual bridge across four generations. Presented as a dual composite, the photograph layers presence and absence, visibility and trace, echoing the complexities of diasporic memory. Printed on translucent silk, the image evokes both the fragility and resilience of cultural inheritance. Through fabric, gesture, and gaze, the work meditates on how matrilineal histories are embodied, passed down, and quietly sustained within South Asian Muslim female experience across time and distance.The image depicts the artist’s daughter wearing her great-grandmother’s dupatta, creating a poignant visual bridge across four generations. Presented as a dual composite, the photograph layers presence and absence, visibility and trace, echoing the complexities of diasporic memory. Printed on translucent silk, the image evokes both the fragility and resilience of cultural inheritance. Through fabric, gesture, and gaze, the work meditates on how matrilineal histories are embodied, passed down, and quietly sustained within South Asian Muslim female experience across time and distance.

I came to recognise that my mother’s way of preserving memory was rooted in holding on to objects, collecting old photographs, and sharing stories through oral recollection. I began to mirror her process, photographing the familiar domestic spaces of my childhood home and curating selections from our family’s photographic archive. I unearthed an old heirloom, a dupatta worn by my grandmother on her wedding day. My process involved spending time sitting with these objects, contemplating the layered stories they held. This became an intimate act of material memory archiving, a way of honouring and reimagining familial narratives through touch, image, and reflection.

I wanted to explore ways of connecting my mother’s portrait with my daughter’s photograph through the shared fabric, drawing on the material as a symbolic link across generations. Building on my earlier silkscreen work with the burqa, I aimed to translate the physical presence of the fabric into an image. I scanned a section of the textile and used it to create a Riso print, experimenting with papers of varying weights to replicate a fabric-like tactility. While the prints were visually effective, the transformation of the object into a two-dimensional image altered its meaning, shifting the focus away from its material and emotional significance. I realised it would be most effective to incorporate the actual fabric into the work.