Negar Farajiani is interested in building connections. For this piece, Farajiani collaborates with master weavers to create an Ikat curtain of a much more ambitious technical level. The piece consists of images woven into pieces of ikat that build up to reveal a spider shape appearing to hide within the threads. AnFord for one to understand what Farajiani may wish to convey with such an image, one must first consider the cultural significance of the material with which it is made.  Ikat, known as Darayi in Iran, is a near-ancient method of coloring wool and silk to create fabrics widely recognizable for their vivid and distinctive patterns by resist-dyeing either the warp or weft of the final product. Some scholars liken ikat to a sort of Jazz whereby standard chords, elemental to the craft, are embellished with regional improvisation to produce varieties of the fabric for which certain areas become famous—one such place being Yazd. Contemplation of Farajiani’s work must also reflect on the power dynamics attendant to not only an outsider but also a woman entering the male-dominated spaces of Yazd’s ikat factories. To intervene in the local customs of a site is not only to influence tradition but also to inhabit the web of social relations that invisibly scaffold it. This last aspect of Red Webber is what most forcefully links it to the cultural function of the curtain in Iran. The entomological imagery raised by Behind the Curtain is suggestive of an attempt to infest this hidden scaffolding and thereby subject it to its own kind of deformation. September 2022