Sayeh Sarfaraz’s creative world draws inspiration from the political events relating to her home country’s government. The constant anxiety of conflict, censorship, and the repression of the people of Iran is relayed in the naive language of a plastic toy collection and drawings. Relating directly to her wandering and exile, the figurines, haphazardly staged along childlike patterns, experience dramatic situations such as violent struggles, bombardments and jailings. This distortion between play and politics highlights the injustice of the manipulation of the weak, the gulf between great powers, and a people’s struggle for freedom. By a power transfer, the artist becomes the mistress of her own world as an outlet where her thoughts can freely unfold.

 
In her installation Dictator is in Town Sarfaraz focuses specifically on the brutality and violence of dictatorships around the world; a point of view over the protests, the demonstrations for the rights of a people or group that exist in every region of the world. The exhibition aims to archive the experiences that will never fade from our collective memory. 
 
Sayeh Sarfaraz was born in Shiraz, the cultural capital of Iran, located in the South West of the country. She graduated from l’École Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg France and she is now pursuing different artistic projects in Montreal where she moved in 2008.
 
Curated by Iga Janik
 
Sayeh Sarfaraz: Dictator is in Town is a presentation of Cambridge Galleries
 
Queen's Square
1 North Square, Cambridge
Saturday September 17 to Sunday October 30
Open to the public: Monday to Thursday: 9:30 AM - 8:30 PM; Friday & Saturday: 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM; Sunday: 1 PM - 5 PM
Opening reception: Saturday September 17, 2:30 PM
Admission: Free