Maryam Ayeen and Abbas Shahsavar

The work draws on the biblical story of Pharaoh’s dream, in which seven lean cows consume seven fat cows, foretelling seven years of famine following seven years of abundance. Maryam Ayeen and Abbas Shahsavar approach the narrative through its agricultural associations rather than its religious significance, employing the natural landscapes of Persian miniature painting to construct a fertile, verdant setting. Against this abundant background, seven lean cows move diagonally towards seven fat, composed figures. Their contrasting forms and movements disrupt the stability of the landscape, establishing a rhythm between calm and disorder. At the bottom of the composition, a man experiencing a nightmare is accompanied by a demon’s head, a symbol of the disturbance unfolding above him. The figures remain secondary to the landscape, where greenery, fertility, and the promise of abundance occupy the foreground.

The serene horizon is unsettled by the diagonal movement of the cows, bringing a sense of instability into an otherwise ordered environment. For the artists, the scene becomes a reflection on resilience in the face of a recurring nightmare: the determination to endure periods of disruption through thought and will, in defence of a geography to which one remains deeply attached. Drawing on a narrative that recurs across different cultural traditions, the work considers the possibility of confronting collective uncertainty and holding on to the hope that its disturbance will eventually come to an end.