This installation draws a poetic and political link between two historically significant women: Gamar Salamzadeh, the first female film director in the East, and Khurshidbanu Natavan, a 19th-century Azerbaijani poetess and philanthropist. Both were profoundly emancipated figures of their time—women who broke with societal expectations and challenged patriarchal structures—yet each faced enduring struggles within the male-dominated environments that shaped their lives and legacies.

The work consists of two central elements: a phosphorescent text glowing with an excerpt from Natavan’s lyrical ghazal—“My dreams and my days are burnt by fire”—and a set of burned 16mm film strips from the artist’s personal archive. The accompanying wall print features stills from Gamar Salamzadeh’s cinematic works, overlaid with poetic fragments by contemporary poet Leyli Salayeva, bridging past and present through a shared language of resistance and renewal.

Together, these materials evoke themes of lost time, silenced voices, and the fragility of memory, while simultaneously honoring the unyielding spirit of women who resisted erasure. The installation becomes a quiet yet searing tribute to untold stories, generational endurance, and the transformative power of art as a form of survival.