SAHAR ESHGHI | AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
SAHAR ESHGHI
IRANIAN ART CURATOR | FOUNDER & DIRECTOR . SAFAREHONAR GROUP
BY ARIEL SU

“It is essential to consider the cultural and religious rules, but artists also need to push the boundaries and express themselves creatively. That is how art can evolve and help society grow. Bending the rules without really doing so is creativity at its best. Limitations make you smart and creative.” – Sahar Eshghi

” Safarehonar Group was established in 2019 with the help of Iranian and French artists. Creating this artistic group aims to introduce contemporary Iranian culture and art to the world and vice versa. In line with this lofty goal, our services include holding exhibitions featuring Iranian and International artists’ artworks and providing educational workshops and seminars inside and outside Iran. In addition, we try to create a platform for artists to present and sell their works of art in an international art market arena.”

Art Market Magazine: It’s a pleasure to interview you, Sahar. As I visited your website and social media, I discovered an influential figure in Iranian and international art. You’ve founded a collective of Iranian artists, presenting beautiful and impressive Islamic contemporary art in different locations worldwide. So let’s start from the beginning; please share with us your background and the journey you passed to this point in time.

Sahar Honar: Thank you so much. It is an honor to be interviewed by such a prestigious magazine, and it is an excellent opportunity for Safarehonar to expand its reach even further.
To give you a little background, from an early age, my sister and I were influenced by our mother, an artist in her own right, always busy with different artistic genres. My father also pushed us to read and expand our minds and be open to the world and what it offers. These appreciated, wonderful parents encouraged us to participate in all the artistic opportunities available. That’s how I started my involvement in many art competitions and participated in many classes to learn new techniques.
I was always creating in all forms that I could think of, from drawing, painting, sculpting, and photography to writing. That is how, about ten years ago, I used my travel experiences to write my published book, “From Paris to Acropolis”, which described my journey in France and Greece. The book was illustrated with my photography during the trip. It also led to a solo photography exhibition at the Iran Artists Forum in 2011 to reveal and expose the book.
This enjoyable experience also led me to write another book, a novel, based on a true story published and translated into English and later in French.
I am a self-taught graphic designer and member of the Iranian Graphic Designers Society that had the occasion of running a company and ultimately led me to teach in a graphic design academy.
This experience turned into an interest in typography that brought me to Georgia. The Tbilisi State University invited me to organize an exhibition showing my work as the first artist using Georgian lettering to create art. I then used my typographic background to create a line of scarves with lettering elements. It has now expanded to many other designs. With these accumulated experiences,
I decided to promote my love for arts and mainly Iranian art and started organizing exhibitions worldwide. The latest exhibition was held at the Linda Farrell gallery in Paris in December 2019. With high turnover, sales, and multiple televised and written reports. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic started to limit my travel possibilities. Therefore, I looked for other ways to promote Iranian artists worldwide and help them get educated about the arts from other parts of the globe. The solution that seemed the most adequate was online exhibitions. We then started working with different international websites and being very active on social media by constantly posting stories about various art movements and artists and at the same time informing them of the latest exhibitions, locally and internationally.
That’s how we organized the “DISTANCE” exhibition, a competition dealing with the subject of social distancing during the pandemic era that we presently live in. We were also able to present artworks on the New York Expo metro billboard.
Once traveling was more accessible, we organized an exhibition in Armenia. So, here you have it, a condensed look into my love for arts and how Safarehonar was founded.

Art Market Magazine: How do you choose which artists to exhibit? How to join Safarehonar art Group to receive exposure internationally?

Sahar Honar: As you know, art can be very subjective, even though there are some basic rules. We do our best to choose diverse artists that can be more traditional. Artists who aim to put forward the traditional Persian arts such as Miniatures and Calligraphy, but also the ones that are more turned towards the future and create their own style, influenced by contemporary art from around the world. To do so, my team and I, each from a different background, try to consider the basic rules of arts, such as color, composition, and scale on the one hand, and the creativity and message, on the other hand, each with our own point of view and taste.

Art Market Magazine: Please tell us about the latest exhibition, ‘DISTANCE,’ focused on the impact of the global pandemic. A collection of different fantastic styles, including contemporary calligraphy art.

Sahar Honar: As a group looking to be in sync with the times we live in, it was imperative to help artists express themselves during these times of global pandemic with its restrictions and limitations. That is how, to make things more challenging and interesting, we came up with the idea of a competition. We had seen a lot of different events having to do with the design of masks, but we wanted to broaden the subject and not limit the art around the Mask. After a period of reflection, we chose to treat the idea of social distancing. The prize for the selected artworks was to be exhibited in the prestigious Iran Artists Forum’s gallery. To make the exhibition visually exciting and equitable for all artists, we imposed a 50×50 cm format. We had the privilege of uniting a panel of esteemed judges, the master painter, Mohammad Hadi Fadavi, the great professor of sociology, Hossein Fekrazad (Ph.D.), and a representative from the Iran Artists Forum. As the organizing and curating group, we also had a vote. The judging was done anonymously, considering factors such as color, composition, technique, creativity,
and adequacy with the subject at hand. We ultimately chose thirty works of art from over 150 submissions. We also had the chance to have 13 master guest artists exhibiting their work in parallel.

We were able to have multiple TV stations televise reports and interviews. We also have a printed book with all the exhibited artworks. The whole 150 pieces can be seen online on a french Artquid website.
We are very proud of this event because it was the occasion to spotlight many unknown artists from around the country, many of whom live in isolated parts of the land where access to artistic events is limited, not to say inexistent.

Art Market Magazine: Where can we expect to enjoy the upcoming exhibitions in 2022?

Sahar Honar: We are currently working on a typography competition to be exhibited on the Spanish website, ‘SHOW US YOUR TYPE’. They organize an online poster exhibition every three months with the subject of a city each time. They chose Tehran as their latest subject and asked our group to represent them and make the event known and grow. So we are holding
a series of typography classes in parallel for the artists interested in participating but do not have the skills or the experience.
Another project that we are currently collecting the data for is publishing a book with 100 artworks from contemporary Iranian artists. Also, the process of another Armenian exhibition is launched. We are becoming very active in the NFT world and are trying to make a name for ourselves in this new and exciting field. The online exhibitions are still going.
We are also working on another local event in the same vein as “Distance”.
Again, we are looking into the subject matter and where and how we want to hold the event, hoping that despite the pandemic limitations, we would be able to organize some exhibitions worldwide, Paris, for example, where we have a base. We wish to expand our visibility to other countries as well.

Art Market Magazine: Is the Safarehonar Group receiving assistance and support from art and culture organizations or galleries worldwide with this vital mission to expose contemporary Iranian art?

Sahar Honar: It is not an easy task. To put it clearly, it is probably the most challenging part of our work. Here in Iran, the number of reputable galleries is minimal, and of course, they are the busiest ones. So it is difficult to even get an appointment with the person in charge. But as for “Distance,” we push and push for receiving the opportunity to work with the most prestigious galleries. There are the less reputable private galleries that work solely for money and don’t really care about the artistic value of the artworks; those can not be considered by our group that prides itself on holding art to the highest standard.
Then, we have the public galleries, attached to the city hall or the state, that can be excellent venues, of course. But, still, it comes at the price of dealing with strict rules and regulations such as what type of art can be exhibited and going through the approbation process from the guidance ministry. That is what we are dealing with locally.
Our access is very limited in the international field because of non-responsive galleries. They have a tendency to ignore emails and messages. But here again, we don’t stop pushing forward, and we end up working with the best galleries.
For example, in Armenia, our relentlessness permitted us to work with Armenia’s reputable and prestigious Artists Union.
We always visit the locations before launching the events to know it is reputable and up to our standards. That makes it a little more challenging because of the traveling difficulties of being an Iranian Passport holder. There is also the matter of cost that rises fast when you need to go back and forth. We try to make it easier by choosing the following venues during the events we organize. That becomes possible only if we have already had an event in that city. It is a little more difficult for newer places because we cannot always trust the pictures of the venue posted online.
There is also the matter of establishing the trust between our group and the gallery owners through emails. Another reason why we need to meet with them in person first. Overall, as you can imagine, it is not an easy task.
Still, our love for arts and our determination to promote the Iranian contemporary artists lead us to remain positive and relentless to make things happen with the highest standards and to the best of our ability. Because of these difficulties, I wanted to especially thank you, on my and my group’s behalf and on behalf of the Iranian artists, for giving us the opportunity to showcase the art of our country beyond its borders.

Art Market Magazine: It’s our pleasure Sahar. It is our mission to support artists from all over the globe. The power of art should not be limited because of political issues and countries’ borders.
From a more personal point of view, as an influential art director, a beautiful and independent woman, was it challenging to get to this position in the Iranian reality of today? Were there any limitations from the cultural and religious restrictions aspects?

Sahar Honar: That’s an excellent question! First of all, thank you for the compliments.
Now, there is a perceived idea of the Iranian society that can be true. There are some limitations to what can be done, but in my opinion, these limitations are not really relevant to me being a woman in my field of activity. Being a woman in a world of mostly men in charge, I assume, like most places in the world, can become an advantage. As one of my male team members told me “If I tried doing the things you do, the response wouldn’t be the same.”
Anyway, the reality is that the difficulties are the same for a man or a woman. As I said previously, the limitations we face in Iran are mainly due to the rules, such as what subjects can be exhibited in terms of a cultural or religious point of view.
For example, in one of our exhibitions held in a prestigious gallery but dependent on the city hall, some of the artworks did not pass the approbation. It is mainly because of paintings of women showing too much cleavage or too much hair, or paintings representing singers or a religious current not inadequacy with the base believes of the country.
But the private galleries and some public ones are a lot more lenient regarding those rules. Overall, it is pretty easy to exhibit any type of art you want.
Let me also very clearly state that I am very respectful of my country’s culture and religion. And I would like to add that every place has its sets of rules, traditions, and customs. It is important to consider them, but artists also need to push the boundaries and express themselves creatively. That is how art can evolve and help society grow. Bending the rules without really doing so is creativity at its best. Limitations make you smart and creative.

Art Market Magazine: How would you describe Iran’s young emerging artistic energy and movement of today?

Sahar Honar: I love this question. It is essentially at the core of what we aim to do; promote the young artists.
Here is how I see it: as I said earlier, we try to put forward two distinct movements in the young artists. On the one hand, we have the keepers of the traditional arts, the miniature painters, and the classical calligraphers that we need in order to keep the past and the ‘savoir-faire’ alive.
But, on the other hand, the artists who want to break the mold, the ones that took the traditional calligraphy and mixed it up, made it their own and diverted it. The ones who create their own style use their own techniques and come up with something new, a mixture of what they know traditionally and what they learn from the opening provided by social media and the internet. These elements can somehow make up for the limitations of traveling and seeing the world for most Iranian artists.
Overall, I am very encouraged by the artists’ energy; they are motivated and open to what is next. For example, the Iranian artists have submerged themselves into the new world of NFT, just another way to be available to the world. They exposed themselves globally, and through that, they could socially connect with other people around the world in social media groups. I am feeling the energy of craving for more and for better. I am very optimistic that such positive energy will not go unnoticed and will bring more positive energy back.

Art Market Magazine: What is your wishful for 2022? To yourself and others?

Sahar Honar: 2022, wishes!!!! Hopefully, the pandemic situation will get better and will help us move forward and move around. I wish for everyone to express themselves the way they feel suited individually. I want them to grow in whatever capacity and domain they want. I wish them the freedom that they long for. I wish them the joy of being fulfilled in life. Love and be loved. Pursue their passion and, most importantly, grow and evolve and stay away from stagnation.
As for myself, I am one of them, so I have the exact wishes for myself: health, love, growth, and evolution in the field that I am passionate about, peace of mind, and happiness in general.
I wish you, as for everyone, whatever your hearts desire.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Read the full article in Art Market Magazine Issue #66