https://laartcore.org/rooted-bodies
Labkhand Olfatmanesh
April 26th – May 17th
Reception: Saturday, May 3rd, 6-9 pm
Women’s bodies connect with the earth,
Root vegetables pressed against the skin.
Carrots, beets, and tubers trace their shape,
A powerful connection that speaks without words.
Flesh and soil come together,
Representing strength, growth, and resilience.
This is a challenge to narrow beauty standards,
A celebration of natural, untamed forms.
The roots reflect life’s cycles—
Each body, each root, tells a story of resistance,
Breaking free from societal expectations.
In this connection with the earth,
These bodies take back space,
Their power rooted in truth,
Embracing autonomy and rejecting fear.
Growing up, I grappled with societal pressures to conform to narrow definitions of beauty and behavior. Embracing my cultural roots and rejecting these norms has been a transformative act of self-discovery. The portrayal of women adorned with root vegetables mirrors this journey, reflecting the resilience of women who refuse to be confined by oppressive standards. It’s a powerful reminder that we have the right to define our own beauty and narratives.
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Labkhand Olfatmanesh is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer based in Los Angeles, originally from Tehran, Iran. Her work explores the complexities of feminism, identity, and displacement through a hybrid visual language that merges portraiture, documentary, and fiction. Drawing from her own experiences of migration and cultural fragmentation, she examines the psychological and emotional landscapes of womanhood shaped by patriarchy, exile, and the pressure to conform.
Through intimate, often vulnerable imagery, she confronts inherited roles and constructs new spaces for ambiguity, resistance, and transformation. Humor, tension, and quiet defiance weave through her photographs and installations—acts of reclamation that challenge silence and make room for self-invention. Her practice is both personal and political, blurring boundaries between the internal and external, the visible and the hidden.Labkhand’s work has been exhibited internationally and nationally at venues including Photo London, Rencontres d’Arles, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, the Asian Art Museum, the Gwangju Biennale, the Peabody Essex Museum, CICA Museum, the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and Torrance Art Museum. She’s received the LensCulture Portrait Awards Jurors’ Pick, 1st place at LACP’s Fine Art Competition, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant. Her work has been featured in LA Times by Christopher Knight, LA Weekly, Dodho Magazine, and LUM Art Magazine. She received a Bachelor of Graphic Design from Abad University in Tehran, Iran. She is a board member of Level Ground, an artist-in-residence at Side Street Projects and 18th Street Arts Center, and a participant in the Arts for LA Innovator Leadership program. She has also featured and presented workshops and videos at universities such as USC, UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly, and NMSU Art Museum.
