Mina Fardeen / Another Birth

11"x17" 2-color Letterpress Fine Art Print

Artist Statment: 

All my existence is a dark verse

Which repeating you in itself will take you

To the dawn of eternal blossoming and growth.*

*First lines of “Another Birth” by Forough Farrokhzad (as translated from Persian to English by Hasan Javadi and Susan Sallée)

Forough Farrokzhad was a revolutionary artist, poet, and activist in mid-20th century Iran, who was tragically killed at the age of 32 in a car accident in 1967. Admittedly overwhelmed by the poem’s emotional weight when I initially read it, I only read Forough’s deep sadness. I struggled to identify its connection to “birth” or the emergence of new life or hope and found myself more guarded when reading poetry than when I began. However, after re-reading her poem several times, my understanding of this poem began to reflect something deeply personal to me and helped me accept the world I exist in right now and the person I am becoming. In this print, I paired the precise, straight lines of the window frame with the fluid, curvilinear strokes of the handwritten calligraphy. Using letterpress, I had the opportunity to determine the literal depressions of all the shapes and lines on the page. It seemed appropriate, then, to make the impression of the poem deeper than the window frame to echo the strong human and intimate nature of this project.

The rich amethyst blue of the text invokes the peace, profundity, and subtle-but-undeniable spark of Forough’s words. It is, in fact, color-matched with the ink I use in my go-to pen, enhancing the handwritten, authentic feel of the poem’s verses. The ballet-pink window frame holds the calligraphy in the center of the page, in acknowledgment of both the beauty and limitations of femininity. The gentle pink frame also pays homage to Forough’s perspective of poetry as a “window” that opens automatically to “freely unburden” [her] heart”.**

My process behind this final print led to a multidimensional exploration of letterpress printing, Forough Farrokzhad’s artistry, and my creative self-expression. Through the course of this project, my skepticism of poetic melancholy dissipated into an appreciation for confident and honest spaces. This print represents that evolution in my perception and my attempt to encapsulate life in art’s dynamic nature.

**from an interview with the critic, Sirius Tahbaz, and the Novelist-Playwright, Gholam-Hossein Sa’ediin Spring, 1964