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Arghavan Khosravi

There's So Many of Us (2)

Maker

Arghavan Khosravi (Iranian, b. 1984 in Shahr-e Kord, Iran), (RISD MFA 2018, Painting)

Title

There's So Many of Us (2)

Year

2017

Medium

  • Color inkjet print overpainted with acrylic on paper

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Color inkjet print overpainted with acrylic on paper

Dimensions

Sheet: 76 x 101.5 cm (29 15/16 x 39 15/16 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Museum purchase: gift of Paula and Leonard Granoff in honor of Jan Howard

Object Number

2017.76

Type

  • Drawings and Watercolors

Exhibition History

On Paper
Gifts from Paula and Leonard Granoff
Oct 29, 2022 – Apr 16, 2023

Label copy

Most of the faces on this sheet are concealed. The most prominent central figure disappears behind a cradled bomb; a pair of legs gently balancing on the weapon’s tip. This scene is layered over an enlarged scan of the artist’s expired Iranian passport. After former president Trump instated a ban on Muslims entering the US in 2017, Arghavan Khosravi began a body of work that explores the creation of narrative and gives agency to women. “My work is a vehicle for shifting power, validating personal storytelling, and connecting to universal messages about human rights,” she explains.

–Jan Howard, Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Un/Settled
Dec 22, 2017 – Jul 08, 2018

Label copy

As an Iranian studying in the United States, I was directly affected by Trump’s executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries. I had just returned to Providence from a trip home when the order was signed. I responded to the ban by painting on the pages of my expired passport, choosing to emphasize or obscure elements of the documents with my own imagery. I later decided to explore this subject matter more by changing the scale of the passport. This approach entailed scanning and inkjet-printing passport pages almost ten times bigger. This helped the passport become defamiliarized as an object.

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Tombstone

Arghavan Khosravi (Iranian, b. 1984 in Shahr-e Kord, Iran)
There's So Many of Us (2), 2017
Color inkjet print overpainted with acrylic on paper
Sheet: 76 x 101.5 cm (29 15/16 x 39 15/16 inches)
Museum purchase: gift of Paula and Leonard Granoff in honor of Jan Howard 2017.76

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

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We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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