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The PHYS Diversity Team invites everyone to a social event honoring on 10. March 2025.

Our guest speaker, , will join us and tell us about her experience working as a multidisciplinary artist. As part of this event, we will be watching Sepideh's short film "Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds" (20 mins).

Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds (2022) 20 minutes

Sepideh Rahaa (b.1981)

In ‘Songs to Earth, Songs to Seeds’ Sepideh Rahaa portrays the poetic but often invisible and inaccessible process of rice cultivation in the paddy lands of Mazandaran, Northern Iran. The process – which takes almost a year - is an intergenerational tradition, with knowledge being passed down for nearly a century through the artist’s family. 

Rahaa expands this familial history, where women play an integral role, to contemporary lives, where strong visual narratives are intertwined with local songs sung by Iranian women. The songs contain stories of their daily struggles in Mazani (an indigenous language from Northern Iran) and are passed from grandmothers to mothers and daughters to be sung during the cultivation and harvest seasons. This poetic narrative connects cultures, languages, geographies, politics, and people, whilst questioning power structures and positioning women’s labour as an everyday resistance. Rahaa lays bare the often invisible and inaccessible process of rice cultivation and invites us to consider how this complex and layered farming of a global food staple is intertwined with contemporary cycles of consumption. The work highlights food politics – particularly how Iranian farmers are forced by sanctions to use toxic chemical fertilisers – and speaks to social and environmental injustice. The film has been shown at Helsinki Biennial (2023), Liverpool Biennial (2023), Open UP Festival Nicosia Cyprus (2023), Japan (2023), Newcastle (2024), Soil Festival South Africa curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa (2024), Lahore Biennial (2024) and Karachi Biennial curated by Waheeda Baloch (2024). The work is acquired by Helsinki Art Museum as part of the City’s art collection.

Artist Biography

Sepideh Rahaa is an Iranian born multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She investigates and questions prevailing power structures, social norms, and conventions while focusing on womanhood, storytelling, and everyday resistances. Rahaa aims to initiate and create spaces for dialogue, influenced by feminist politics, decolonial and postcolonial theories and practices as well as social and environmental justice. Currently she is pursuing her doctoral studies in Contemporary Art at Aalto University. Her work has been exhibited in Europe, Africa, East and Southwest Asia: Iran, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Pakistan, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland, including venues such as Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Lahti Art Museum MALVA, Rauma Art Museum for the Rauma Triennale 2022, Artsi Art Museum 2021 and Pori Art Museum 2019. In recent years she exhibited at Lahore Biennial 03 (2024), Karachi Biennial (2024), Liverpool Biennial (2023) and Helsinki Biennial (2023). 

Come and join us to hear Sepideh's story!

Snacks will be served starting at 14.45, the talk with film will start at 15.00 and is followed by questions.

Vegan, gluten free and vegetarian options are included.