Haley Darya Parsa: Tracing a Border (Dissolved with the Sun)
stop-gap projects, Columbia, MO
Cyanotype on habotai silk
June 2–July 7, 2023
Tracing a Border (Dissolved with the Sun) presents an installation of cyanotypes on silk by New York–based artist Haley Darya Parsa. On view will be a selection from the artist’s ongoing series, Tracing a Border, depicting the fence gates surrounding her house in New York and her family’s yard in Texas.
Similar to the cyanotype process itself–an alternative photographic printing process activated by light–the installation becomes activated by the sunlight coming in through the window, interacting with and giving into the natural elements. Sunlight will also be a source of change over time: the prolonged, direct sun exposure will cause the images to fade slightly and gradually over the course of the exhibition and, in a small and quiet way, symbolize the dismantling of borders with the restorative power of the sun and of shared community.
As Parsa lives in the U.S. with much of her family in Iran and abroad, the sun, for her, becomes a border-crossing mechanism, encompassing both distance and connection as it travels between them. Using sunlight as a direct material in her work, she views the sun poetically and politically, considering larger ideas of immigration and separation, as well as growth and renewal.
Several of the works in the show were recently exhibited by The Studio Worldwide in a 2022 solo presentation in New York, NY and online.
The works on view, listed below, document the sun at various locations and intervals throughout the day all from the past year:
Tracing a Border (Texas Sun at 12:31 PM), 2022
Tracing a Border (Texas Sun at 4:34 PM), 2022
Tracing a Border (New York Sun at 4:34 PM), 2022
Tracing a Border (New York Sun at 4:37 PM & 5:04 PM), 2022
Tracing a Border (New York Sun at 5:22 PM), 2022
Tracing a Border (New York Sun at 5:52 PM), 2022