Hadis Karami
MFA ’23 Fine Arts 3D
My work is rooted in childhood memories, nightmares, and traumas from growing up in Iran. Through making, I seek to understand how social norms, religious expectations, and political pressures have shaped my identity. I mainly work with fiber-based techniques like embroidery, weaving, sewing, and basketry because these methods are deeply connected to women’s lives in my culture. Using them allows me to explore femininity, resistance, and the quiet strength of craft. I often combine traditional stitches with unconventional materials like hair, rough threads, or tangled yarn to highlight the tension between beauty and violence, attraction and repulsion—contradictions that have always existed in my life. This mix of materials enables me to question the roles imposed on women, the boundaries between private and public life, and the ways experiences mark the body, both visibly and invisibly. While my work draws from personal memories, it also reflects a collective experience shared by many Iranian women who continue challenging cultural and political limits. Through fiber, texture, and repetition, I aim to create a space where these layered histories, tensions, and identities can be felt, held, and understood.
Hadis Karami is a mixed media fiber artist based in Massachusetts. Utilizing various fiber techniques, Hadis delves into her childhood memories and personal experiences to question political, socio-cultural, and gender norms in her home country, Iran. Her work has been exhibited across the United States. She is the recipient of the Jill Slosburg-Ackerman Scholarship from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Foundation and the ARP Artnet grant. Hadis has also been an artist in residence at SPACE in Portland, ME, and the Chautauqua Institution in NY.
