Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago is pleased to present Dwelling Places, a solo exhibition of work by Elnaz Javani, who was selected through TSA Chicago’s first open call. Here, Javani presents a new body of work which includes small and large-scale, hand-dyed and printed textiles that incorporate surface manipulation, appliqué, and hand-stitching. Exploring how the body is affected and shaped by its negotiations with the objects and spaces around them, Javani creates surfaces in which identities are constantly being reconsidered and set into new relations with their surroundings, addressing the slippage that is always present.

In Queer Phenomenology, Sara Ahmed writes about the notion of disorientation as not only a bodily feeling but also a political concept. The way our bodies move about in the world, the way certain objects and places are accessible to us, indicate that there are some sites in which we feel habituated—our bodies are “in place”—and other sites in which we don’t. This disorientation takes the form of moments of perceived loss, of “failed orientation,” that give rise to new directions for creating a sense of belonging.

Through the acts of layering, cutting, printing, dying and sewing, Javani creates moments of disorientation and reorientation that question history, gender, culture and celebrate confusion, doubt, and entanglement as generative forces. Her engagement with tactile materials models how we can use storytelling and image-making as transformative strategies for survival and resistance by challenging dominant narratives that simplify and flatten the experience. It is through moments of disorientation, she proposes, that we might learn what it means to be oriented in the first place.

Artist Bio:

Elnaz Javani is an Iranian artist and educator currently residing in Chicago. She works between the media of textiles, drawing, print, and installations. Her practice revolves around the fragmentation of identity and place, power dynamics and labor. Through layering, stitching and dye; she tries to construct a personal, fictional and imaginary space of existence. She holds an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she was the recipient of the New Artist Society Merit Scholarship, and holds a BFA from Tehran University of Art. Javani is a 2023 Center for Craft Artist Cohort Grant Recipient and she was awarded Faculty Enrichment Grants from SAIC 2022-2021, and was named one of Chicago’s Break Out Artists of the year for 2022, she has received a Spark Grant from Chicago Artist Coalition (2021), the Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award and Residency Grant (2020), the Define American Art Fellowship Grant (2020), and the Hyde Park Art Center Flex Space Residency Award (2019). Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally in the USA, Spain, Iran, France, Colombia, Turkey, UAE, Germany, Canada, and Switzerland.