‘From Memory to Memorial’ takes its reference from artists’ familial past around some historical events between 1920-1930 in Turkmenistan. While this decade was crucial for Turkmenistan to acquire a clearly defined territory under the Soviet rule, it came at huge cost to her ancestors: execution, confiscation of property, and displacement.
In 2017 she started exploring her familial history of that specific time period through her art practice and exhibited the final work in 2019 at B-galleria Turku, Finland. This current show is the continuation of the Turku show, however with a different angle. In Vejdani’s earlier show the focus was on studying the transmission of her familial history of that time through familial memory, while this time the focus is on portraying that memory and juxtaposing it with some elements. Elements such as Turkmen rituals, Turkmen epic stories, Turkmen carpet making, Turkmen written history, and western art history. This depicts her curiosity to construct a connection with all those elements. A connection that is either temporal ( before and after), spatial or relational. Through this built connection, she attempts to make her familial past visible and map it in a broader contemporary historical events.
