Spotlight on 2022 Biennial Grant Recipient Show artist Leila Mesdaghi
Leila Mesdaghi seeks to connect with viewers in a visceral, evocative, emotional manner. To her, art is a combination of emotional experience and social responsibility. Through her performance pieces and now film, she comments on social and political issues like war in the Middle East, the negative reflections of Social Media in society, the housing crisis in the U.S, or the price and promise of progress.
Mesdaghi used the grant she received from the City of Fort Myers to help fund her latest project, Green Wedding, a series of six portraits
(Emotionscapes) with limited editions, which she staged and shot in the yard, in the pool, and inside the house in which she grew up in Iran.
“Being at the house I grew-up in during my last visit to Iran and conscious about my thoughts, feelings, and memories, I embarked on a new project and 
began talking to a psychologist to help with my process and understanding,” Leila relates. “As a child I had dreams about getting married and having a wedding in our house. An Iranian wedding is a heavily glamorized and festive event where the bride is treated like a princess and guests come celebrate and admire her with gold and jewelry.”
Leila decided to have a wedding for herself.
“I made my dress at a high-end fashion boutique, bought a beautiful gold ring 
with my dad’s money, hired Maryam Saeedpoor (a well-known photographer,) a hair stylist, played Persian wedding music, and had few friends plus my aunt and uncle as my guests. Everyone was calling me the bride and this make believe set up really made me feel beautiful (in an unfamiliar and strange way) with my fake eyelashes and heavy makeup … kept questioning 
if that was me or not?”
The following day, Mesdaghi shot a video called A Poem.
“I made a mirror neckless in the shape of a flower from a Persian rug which was also from a region my family comes from, Kashan,” Leila explains. “I wore the mirror on my chest and walked around, showing the reflection of house and also the reflection of my heart. I collaborated with a director and vocalist for this piece.”
The director was Khashayar Khalilkhani; the vocalist Mahboubeh Golzari. The poem she recited was by Iranian poet Houshang Ebtehaj about love and longing.
May 4, 2022.
About the Author
Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.