Mahnaz Nezarati

Women's Tea depicts relationships between women through the cultural and social Iranian tradition of sharing tea. The triptych is composed of three 4 x 6 Ft. panels using pastel and pencil on paper. Drinking tea and coffee is an Iranian social ritual intended as a safe place to engage in new conversation and interactions. Women specifically are expected to use this time to share intimate moments from their private lives with one another. This ritual can bring women together to bond in friendship but it can also bring uninvited judgment and gossip. I am using the common, seemingly mundane ritual of sharing tea, as a site to excavate more nuanced social and cultural ramification of this experience. This personal piece is about the dualism I experience during that ritual and more broadly about the hidden challenges of living as a woman in an Iranian diaspora.