Sahar        Tarighi

Feqyane* فەقیانە 

2026 

Ceramics, clay, fabric, wire, video 

Size: Variable 

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Feqyane’s form and its intimate relationship to the hand and body ground and shape this body of work. As an extension of the arm, it carries the memory of hands in motion, wrapping, pressing, lifting, laboring, caring, resisting and dancing.

 

Around 1980, during the Iran–Iraq War and the internal conflict in Kurdistan, my family fled and, for several months, worked in a brick factory in Hamedan. I came to know those years through my mother’s stories and through a cassette tape that served as the only means of communication between our family and relatives who had remained in our city. Voices were recorded and exchanged across distance, preserving connection despite rupture. I envision my mother’s hands in a brick factory, marked with a traditional Kurdish tattoo, in motion while holding Feqyane, a living archive of labor, displacement, and survival in this work, What Her Hand Holds.

 

In Kurdish dress, Feqyane is worn by both women and men and carries cultural, protective, and bodily significance. It rests between the wrist and elbow and extends beyond the sleeve as a continuation of the arm. In women’s clothing, the sleeves are made from the same fabric as the garment, often ending in elongated, flared, dangling triangular forms that can extend nearly one meter. These extensions may be wrapped individually around each arm or loosely knotted behind the body. In men’s attire, Feqyane appears as a separate white layer worn over the sleeves, either wrapped or left hanging freely.

 

Protective and intimate, traditionally it functioned as a working cloth used to carry money, wipe sweat, protect the wrist, and, in times of conflict, even bind the wounds of Kurdish fighters. It is both adornment and tool, vulnerability and defense. Feqyane operates as an extension of the arm itself, recording its labor, care, and movement, and continues today as an active element in celebrations, including Newroz. In Helperke, women and men hold hands as they move together, and released into motion, Feqyane lifts and sweeps through the air, becoming a visible continuation of the body and a shared rhythm of collective unity. I am drawn to its conical form, which subtly echoes the peaks of the Zagros Mountains, particularly when covered with snow, landscape folded into dress, geography extended through the body.

 

Through fabric casting, the original fabric burns away in the kiln, leaving only a fragile clay trace. This act of wrapping and casting becomes a reenactment of care and repetition, with each layer recording touch, pressure, and absence. I dismantle and reassemble the structure of Feqyane, allowing it to fragment and reunite, as memory itself does. Braiding, a recurring element in my art-making practice, binds these fragments. In Kurdish culture, braid carries associations of femininity, lineage, covenant, body and land. Here, clay-cast braids function like the spinal cord, structural yet vulnerable, stitching together fabric, body, and history.

 

Feqyane holds movement at the threshold where memory shifts form, from hand to hand, from voice to cassette, from textile to clay. It reflects on labor as care, displacement as wound, and the quiet endurance carried through repeated gestures. 

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*Feqyane فەقیانە  is also known in other Kurdish dialects as Sorani or Levendi. 

کلانگوچک، لەوەندی، لەڤەندی، کەلانگوچک یان سۆرانی

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