Since 2012, Sara Rahanjam has engaged with the visual language of conflict—crafting sculptural forms that reinterpret the iconography of war through a deeply personal and human lens. In her Objects of War series, rockets, bombs, and gas masks are reimagined not as weapons, but as vessels of reflection—repositories for fear, resilience, and collective memory.

The sculptures juxtapose polished, futuristic forms with intricate, hand-painted motifs drawn from Persian miniature painting. This fusion of tradition and modernity transforms instruments of destruction into objects of beauty and contemplation. The delicate ornamentation—floral vines, mythic figures, and radiant explosions—renders the surfaces alive with tension, embodying the collision between cultural heritage and technological violence.

Living in the Middle East, Rahanjam describes existing “under the shadows of war; a wound that never truly heals.” Her work seeks not to aestheticize violence but to understand it—to trace how fear and trauma can coexist with faith, creativity, and survival.

In the wake of renewed geopolitical unrest, these sculptures resonate with renewed urgency. Their gleaming exteriors mirror both the seductive allure and the devastating consequence of power. Through them, Rahanjam invites viewers to confront the paradox of beauty born from ruin—to see, within the machinery of destruction, the indelible persistence of human spirit.