Untitled, color pencil on paper, 44.5” x 33”, 2024

To see a list of available work, please email: info@pond.gallery

Pond is ecstatic to present our third exhibition, That Lost Folio Vol. II, by Iranian-born, mixed-media artist, Ziba Rajabi. Having spent six years living, working, and teaching in Northwest Arkansas, Rajabi’s solo exhibition at Pond is a culmination of ideas and processes developed during her period of extensive research here in Fayetteville. First iterated earlier this year at the University of Minnesota, That Lost Folio Vol. II is the continuation of an installation-based project containing over 350 drawings exploring the complex history of Persian art and Iranian architecture. 

In the Golestān Palace of Tehran, there is a tiled wall that, unlike the other carefully preserved architectural elements of the Palace, has been repaired ad hoc with mismatched tiles of random size and design. Rather than feeling artifactual, the resourceful and improvisational restoration has lent this wall a playful, in-progress, and even “glitched” aesthetic. Rajabi claims that this wall does not feel old, but “speaks to viewers with contemporary slang.”

During the late Safavid dynasty, European expeditions into Iran resulted in the exploitation and exportation of valuable cultural artifacts, including countless masterfully illustrated books. The pages of these books were torn from their spines and scattered across Europe by collectors, leaving their contents lost to Iran forever. Using the wall at Golestān Palace as inspiration for her installation, That Lost Folio Vol. II is Rajabi’s metaphorical reclamation of lost Iranian culture which, due to theft and displacement, continues to disappear. By reassembling her own wall of fractured narratives, Rajabi creates a repaired history told with the power of lived experience.

Ziba Rajabi (b.1988, Tehran, Iran) utilizes painting, drawing, and fabric-based installation to question and reconcile her relationship with two distinct spaces; her homeland of Iran and her current place of residence, the United States. Rajabi received her MFA from the University of Arkansas in 2019 and her BFA from Sooreh University, Tehran in 2013. She is the recipient of the Jerome Foundation Mid-Career Artist Fellowship and the Artist 360 Grant. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at many institutions and galleries, such as; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Masur Museum in Louisiana, CICA Museum in South Korea, 21C Museum in Arkansas, Araan Gallery in Tehran, and The II Platform in the UK, amongst many others. She has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Terrain Residency, and Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Ziba Rajabi currently lives and works between Minneapolis and Chicago.

 Golestān Palace Wall, Tehran, Iran  (16th c. - Present)