heellife link: https://heellife.unc.edu/event/11595307 Please join us in GEC 1005 for a reception with artist Maryam Safajoo, creator of My Bitter Childhood Window, currently on display in the atrium of the the FedEx Global Education Center. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, Maryam Safajoo is a Persian American artist whose work centers on memory, resilience, and justice. Through miniature oil paintings on linen, she documents the persecution of the Bahá’í community in Iran following the 1979 revolution—stories often silenced or erased. Drawing from personal and collective experience, Maryam reconstructs these histories with meticulous detail, preserving voices denied representation. Having lived through this oppression herself, she recalls the day government forces raided her home and imprisoned her father. Her younger sister was later denied education and placed in solitary confinement. These are not isolated events—they reflect a broader reality of systemic discrimination. Maryam’s process involves interviews, archival research, and lived memory. Her subjects often reenact real stories, transforming oral histories into visual records. Deeply influenced by her mother, a former prisoner of conscience, and others executed for their beliefs, Maryam’s art is a form of witness and resistance. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Nobel Prize Museum; and the Crocker Art Museum, among others. Through global exhibitions and press, she sparks conversations about justice and human dignity.