Diba

Overdress(ed) project process

Eight metres of hand-painted fabric representing the flowing hair of Iranian women: intimate, personal, and weaponised against them. Yet in the Shahnameh, hair is also a symbol of feminine power. Here, it becomes a thread between past and present, carrying memory, identity, and resistance through the body.

Red ink also runs through the fabric like blood and pomegranate juice, holding life, violence, and cultural memory in the same stain.

Printed across the fabric using hand made stencils is a verse from Bani Adam by Saadi Shirazi, invoking empathy and shared humanity, the reminder that all bodies are bound to one another.