Installation view of Tea House and the Ignition exhibition, 2024-2025, Various dimension (each around 8x4 inches), Tea bags and starch glue, Taken by Jean-Michael Seminaro, Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2025.
Installation view of Tea House and the Ignition exhibition, 2024-2025, Various dimension (each around 8x4 inches), Tea bags and starch glue, Taken by Jean-Michael Seminaro, Courtesy of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2025.
“Tea house” is an ongoing experimentation of architectural structures created from used tea bags and starch glue, inspired by the process of Chin Colle in printmaking. My exploration of tea is inspired by the significance and generosity of sharing a cup of tea as a Persian tradition of creating community.
My interest in tea is in its material and conceptual framework, I began collecting used tea bags as remnants of shared experiences and repurposing them into small architectural structures. The stains and textures embedded in the tea bags hold traces of past conversations, which, through collecting and careful manipulation, have come to construct a series of Tea Houses. I am interested in the literal relationship of creating community through sharing tea and a "house" created by its remnants and containers.