The Sadra Project
Can the pain of impermanence be softened by making something beautiful?
This question sits at the heart of The Sadra Project. For the Parsi community, the sadra is the most intimate of garments: white muslin worn close to the skin, every day, as a quiet act of faith. It is not displayed. It is not discussed. It is simply worn, until it begins to fall apart.
The project began with the sadras of Ziya Tarapore’s father. As they grew thin and threadbare, Ziya found herself facing a harder truth: that the man who wore them was growing frail too. She could not set the garments aside. Instead, she cut them into small pieces, removing the sacred sections carefully before processing them in a Hollander machine until the cloth gave way to fibre. That fibre became paper. That paper became fire, water, roots and sky.
Inspired by the Zoroastrian ethos of preserving the natural world, of recycling, the themes resonate with the Elements. In Atash, fibres of banana and mulberry are processed with the cotton until they splay and curl like flames, rising from bases cast in sadra pulp. In Anahita, pulp dyed in deep blues, greens and the grey-white of sea foam holds the memory of rivers, deltas and the ocean floor. Giah and Vraksh turn to the plant kingdom and the Tree of Life. Fire that began as cloth. Water held in something that once held a body.
What began as a way to honour Ziya’s father became a way to hold him a little longer. His sadras were the catalyst, but the project did not stay his alone. As word spread, friends and family began offering their own. Each garment carried a different life, a different body, a different faith quietly kept. All of them, and the energies they hold, are present in the work. The Sadra Project began as an experiment in January 2023; what is presented is the culmination of three years of work.
It matters that this work comes home to Mumbai from Ziya’s studio in New York. Here, the sadra needs no explanation. Many visitors will think of someone in their own lives who wore one.
Perhaps that is what this show is really about. Not holding on to what we must inevitably lose, but discovering how love can take it forward and make it beautiful.
THE ARTIST
Ziya Tarapore
Drawing from colors, textures, and forms inherent in nature, Ziya Tarapore utilizes the unexpected versatility of found and recycled materials to create three-dimensional paper pulp paintings.
Tarapore repurposes worn garments, and sometimes packing material, to construct abstracted, figurative work that seeks to criticize mass production, instant gratification, and consumerism present across cultures. In keeping with the Zoroastrian ethos of preserving the natural world and recycling, Tarapore alludes to the present crisis on the planet we live on. She challenges the viewer to consider the ironic duality of her subject matter and chosen media, as the trees that Tarapore often seeks to evoke are the same trees that must be displaced in order to make paper commercially.
Tarapore pulls her own paper mainly from recycled muslin which she layers, melds, and dyes. She scrapes and tears the surface to form the textured bark of tree trunks, the form and color of gossamer petals, the sun-baked planes of old walls, or the rocks that color mountains and canyons. She incorporates texture and sculptural depth using wet paper, encaustic, and muslin; her background in design and woven textiles informs her practice, as she manipulates dyed and bleached paper as though it were textiles. More recently she has begun using alternative photography techniques to create a visual story based in the cultural aspects of the Parsi community to which she belongs.
Tarapore received a BA in Woven and Knitted Textiles in Manchester, UK, and a diploma in woven textile from Bombay University. She learned hand papermaking at the Penland School.
Tarapore is currently a member of North American Hand Papermakers as well as a board member of the International Artist and Papermakers Association.
Tarapore lives in New York and is an active member of the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York (ZAGNY) a FEZANA Member association
IN CONVERSATION WITH
Tanya Hoshi
Tanya Hoshi is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker focused on producing bold, socially driven stories across documentary and scripted formats. Her projects have been acquired by networks including CBC, CNN, and NBC, and had premieres at Oscar-qualifying festivals such as Hot Docs and TIFF.
Since 2020, Tanya has held the role of Head of Communications for FEZANA, where she has produced over 1,000 pieces of original digital content featuring stories about Zoroastrianism and the Zoroastrian community. Tanya is currently on the Board of the Zoroastrian Return to Roots Program and is an alumna of the World Zoroastrian Youth Leaders Forum. Tanya’s commitment to her community and achievements in her career led her to be awarded the Outstanding Youth Award at the 2022 World Zoroastrian Congress in New York City.
