Imperishable Gravity

Sara Abbasian

The cosmic turtle that holds up the world is a mythology found across cultures as disparate as Native American and First Nations peoples and Chinese and Vedic texts. The characteristics of this creature such as persistence, endurance and longevity and contradictory behavioral and biological patterns enables it to survive in versatile habitat from desert to the sea.
On the other hand, what emerges in the contemporary world is an expanded field of violence that extends beyond detonations and headline events to the quiet microaggressions of everyday interactions. Religious beliefs, nationalistic ideologies, obedience to charismatic and authoritarian leaders, or desire for political change have been the motivations for suicide attacks.

In this exhibition, turtles in a metaphorical, obscure fashion represents appalling situations which victims and organized crime and terror groups face today: multi-headed, deformed grotesquerie, made monstrous by the world precariously balanced on its back. Its shell becomes a kind of plate armor, impervious to bullets but not to the virulence and depravities of contemporary society that have leached down through the soil like acid rain.

Sara Abbasian, untitled, from “Imperishable Gravity” series, pencil on cardboard, 35 x 50 cm, 2016
Sara Abbasian, untitled, from “Imperishable Gravity” series, pencil on cardboard, 35 x 50 cm, 2016
Sara Abbasian, untitled, from “Imperishable Gravity” series, pencil on cardboard, 35 x 50 cm, 2016
Sara Abbasian, untitled, from “Imperishable Gravity” series, pencil on cardboard, 35 x 50 cm, 2016
Sara Abbasian, “Factory 01” Group Exhibition, installation view, 2018