Foreword
The opening of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre, our dedicated hub for contemporary art in Baku, is a milestone for us. As a not-for-profit organization which pioneers contemporary art, YARAT has been up and running for four years. Over that time we have added our own distinct mark to the cultural landscape of Azerbaijan and reached many people both at home and internationally. From the outset I have been encouraged and inspired by the remarkable diversity of the audiences who have visited our exhibitions, taken part in our workshops and attended our festivals. YARAT has collaborated with so many individuals beyond the community of artists who first came together to make our initial projects happen. Our audiences and participants include the families, children, parents, sisters and brothers who make up our community. It felt fitting, therefore, that such a myriad of individuals should be represented in the inaugural exhibition of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre through the new commission by Shirin Neshat entitled The Home of My Eyes (2015). Shirin Neshat is an artist whom I have great admiration for and I was delighted when she accepted our invitation to come to Azerbaijan to create a new commission for YARAT. Upon visiting and traveling around the country, Shirin felt inspired by Azerbaijan’s wonderful diversity and vivid cultural past, something she felt was embodied within the personal and the domestic, as much as within the archaeological or the historical. Often the personal narratives of our home are superseded by those aspects of culture and history which outlast us. However our oral history, and the history of the individual, are as important to the celebration of a community—a city, a country, a culture—as its documents and artefacts. In The Home of My Eyes, Shirin has captured fleeting personal moments, memorializing and celebrating the intricacies of each individual Azerbaijani who took part in the project by sitting for their portrait. This interaction—be it with artists, educators, ambassadors, or just the enduringly curious—exemplifies one of YARAT’s core intentions: to encourage the exchange of ideas. Shirin’s deeply moving and personal works, therefore, are a sensitive and apt response to her experiences in Azerbaijan and the people she encountered. Of course this opening could not have taken place without the generous support, hard work and brilliant creativity of those involved. I would like to take this moment to thank Shirin Neshat, her studio team and gallery, her wonderful sitters, the dedicated curator Dina Nasser-Khadivi, the team here at YARAT, the catalogue contributors, and the press team; it is everyone’s contributions over the past years that have made this launch possible. I look forward to seeing what collaborations the future will bring.
Aida Mahmudova Founder of YARAT
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