Elham Rokni

Elham Rokni born1980, Iran. Lives and works in Israel. 

Rokni was born in Iran in 1980, just after the Islamic revolution, and grew up in Tehran. Her family immigrated to Israel when she was nine years old, knowing they will never be allowed to return to Iran again. During her adolescence, Rokni assimilated into Israeli society, but the experience of migration, transition, and disconnection is still present in the artist’s personal life and artistic practice.

In Elham Rokni’s drawings, paintings, and videos, the artist repeatedly constructs and deconstructs memories, patterns, colors, and shapes that have to do mostly with her childhood from Tehran. Most of her drawing series are based on family albums and images found online of places in the Middle East that Rokni cannot reach, as well as generic, orientalist representations of the Islamic and the middle eastern world.

In her practice, Elham Rokni connects her personal experience as an immigrant to urgent political and ethical issues. Sheexplores the actions and notions of accessibility and free movement in relation to the dialectical development of the globalized world, namely, on the one hand, the artist consider the free movement of goods, services, and a limited number of people, and on the other hand, the fortified nations and communities, surrounded by separation walls and other barriers, abound with racism and fear.