This work, in combination with the Goddess (i-ii-iii-iv) installations, formed the core ideas behind her MFA Critical Studies at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art. She was influenced by poems, proverbs, and idioms that shaped her present philosophy about the global crisis of climate change. The Rain installation is not meant to illustrate the typical rain one might expect to see. This unique phenomenon is based on her imagination and thoughts: the metaphoric meaning of rain, the symbolic meaning of rain as perceived in Zoroastrianism and Islam, the acid rain phenomenon, poisonous rain, as well as the importance of rain in a desert-like arid region.

Nevertheless, she wouldn’t try to push people to accept it as ordinary rain. She prefers them to feel free to perceive it in their own way. If they want, they can walk through it or lie down on the floor and watch it. She thinks this installation provides the spectators with diverse viewing perspectives. She also tried to show a form of mass movement with the positioning of the nails in special arrangements, as if watching a flock of birds flying harmoniously on the horizon. Since the fishing wires used are hard to spot, at some point the nails, which are suspended in the thin air, create the illusion of raindrops. Using some cigarette filters to symbolize the clouds also helped balance the roughness of glazing brad nails. Fishing lines, nails (glazing brad), cigarette filters, wood, and glue were used to construct this project.

Religious & Cultural Importance of Rain in Arid Regions

The word “rain” has been frequently used in both the Koran and Avesta’s Book of Anahita. Needless to say, both religions originated in arid regions of the Middle East, where rainfall was scarce; therefore, unlike most other meteorological phenomena, rain is treated with extreme caution and respect in both holy books. A clear example of a reference to rain in the Koran is the following verse:

…Oh you who believe! Do not make your charity worthless by reproach and injury, like him who spends his property to be seen of men and does not believe in Allah and the last day; so his parable is as the parable of a smooth rock with earth upon it, then a heavy rain falls upon it, so it leaves it bare; they shall not be able to gain anything of what they have earned; and Allah does not guide the unbelieving people.

Similarly, Avesta refers to rain as follows:

For whom Ahura Mazda [God] has made four horses – the wind, the rain, the cloud, and the sleet – and thus ever upon the earth it is raining, snowing, hailing, and sleeting; and whose armies are so many and numbered by nine-hundred and thousands.

In a dry country, rain is an unusual event; people cheer up when it rains, so they step outside to celebrate it. Rain in the Middle East has a distinctive earthy scent. Water is crucial for sustainable living, especially in feudal societies of the Middle East, where irrigation and the survival of plantations depend entirely on the amount of rainfall received.

Since there was no known solution to the drought problem, her helpless ancestors took refuge in prayers and making sacrificial offerings to gods and goddesses. Rain in Iran is a symbol of cleanliness as well as fertility. It is also synonymous with the mercifulness of God, used as a metaphor for crying or even a female’s given name; furthermore, when someone wants to describe an abundance of something, rain is used metaphorically, e.g., “I received a rain of letters today” – meaning she received a large number of letters.

The metaphoric use of rain is not limited to the arid regions only; although most parts of Europe receive above-average rainfall compared to other parts of the world, European countries have their special day for rain: Thursday, the fifth day of the week, is named after Thor, Norse god of thunder. Also, rain’s influence on early Christians is notable; Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, is the Christian holy day that falls on the Thursday before Easter. It commemorates the day of the Last Supper. Ascension Day, the 40th day after Easter, marking the ascension of Christ into Heaven, also falls on Thursday. Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday in the US, is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

The Rain Project: Her Perception

Her initial intention was to make the Rain project a glamorous artwork since she was under the influence of numerous Iranian poems she had read about rain. She tried to assert her poetic feelings – as an Iranian woman who loves rain – in her works of art.

Despite her initial plan, she was not truly inclined to create a lifelike rain; thus, she preferred to create her version of rain in an unrealistic atmosphere. For her, rain can represent more than just abundance or be a modest symbol of a movement. Rain can be damaging or it can have no effect at all; as the Persian saying goes, “a drowning man is not troubled by rain.” Conversely, it could be as effective as the Greek historian Plutarch said in 100 AD, “Extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles.”

It was only after contemplating all these facts that she finally decided what her work was going to look like. Her rain was going to be aggressive and strange because she belongs to a generation that has witnessed a bloody revolution, 8 long years of imposed war and sanctions, followed by the devastating effects of both political and actual climate change. Her raindrops were going to be chaotic, hard-hammered, rigid, and pointy, very much like the reality of her life, as opposed to being heavenly soft, and serene. So she chose nails to symbolize raindrops in her work; what other objects could express these aggravated emotions any better than some short black pointy nails? And finally, nails raining from the sky is a rare if not impossible meteorological phenomenon indeed; as strange as a prosthetic cloud composed of cigarette filters.