Bahareh and Farzaneh Safarani’s “Submerged in Time” is a transfixing display of scenes that draw attention to the way that time stretches and compresses. In ShowUp’s basement space, ten oil paintings come alive with small video vignettes of the artists performing and other images that animate what would otherwise be a snapshot in time. Two additional static mixed-media works complete the series.
Against shadowy backgrounds, the vibrant motifs of bright red balloons and glowing string lights stand apart. Video clips of varying lengths move across the canvas via carefully installed and mapped projections. A woman meticulously blows up balloons or sets up the lights, while in others, the silhouettes of frolicking figures or raining confetti provide a tentative sense of levity. A dissonance exists between the objects of celebration and the solemn, solitary figures. The viewer sees the evidence of cheer, but never actually glimpses true lively celebration—only the quiet moments in between. The result is a feeling of unease and a whisper of melancholy. Something is not quite right, though what exactly it is remains elusive.
The videos are so intentionally and seamlessly incorporated, it almost feels as though the paint itself is moving. These literal layers allow the artwork to reflect the complicated layers of memory—how different fragments can merge; how the past can be tinged with a subjective lens; and how certain memories can become inaccessible with distance.
“Submerged in Time” captures a moment that is simultaneously the past and present. I experience the projection as a lingering echo of memory and the paint on the canvas as the more tangible representation of the present moment. In Leave the Moment Hanging (2025), multiple bright balloons hang from string while behind them, a woman appears to methodically blow up balloons. The ghostlike quality to the projection creates a sense that she is not quite there with them, existing somewhere in the time before the painted moment.
Two moments in time also exist together in Shadow of a Memory #1 and #2 (2025). Differing from the rest of the pieces, the pair are mixed-media works without a projection element that incorporate photography and an actual balloon. Both display the deflated balloon against the photographed backdrop of once was: a fuzzy shadow of an inflated balloon and the arms of a person holding it. The deflated balloon cannot escape this reverberation of the past, and yet it also cannot return to that state, evoking the feeling that something is lost. Woven throughout the collection is the bittersweet sting of nostalgia—like the emotional letdown after the party ends—but the direct visual representation of loss and its visceral quality makes the feeling particularly pronounced here.
The idea of layered, tangled memories is reinforced in the way some elements of the artwork are clearly visible, while others are obscured. In Unravelling Joy (2025), a figure is hidden behind a white screen, leaving only a blurry outline. It feels eerie—a haunting, formidable presence, lurking just behind a thin wall—yet is juxtaposed with the festive, continuous fall of confetti. Isolated Contentment (2025) features bright balloons and string lights easily seen in the painted foreground, yet the projected woman moves within the shadows of the house behind them. Some memories are hidden in the unconscious while others arrive with vivid clarity, leaving the joy and the pain to blend together.
The most striking piece within “Submerged in Time” is Wishful Spectator (2025). At forty-five by sixty inches, the large painting depicts a self-referential projection screen and projector in the middle of a dark room. On the screen, an actual projected video plays a mesmerizing sequence of a birthday cake being lit by a hazy figure, followed by another similar figure blowing out the candles and then gesturing in slow, trancelike movements. As the cloudy figure moves, its visibility increases and decreases.
Adding another level to the ethereal scene, a painted woman stands alongside the left edge of the canvas, peeking into the room. The viewer may be watching this woman watch a memory, but her trepidation makes her feel like an intruder. Is the viewer and this woman one and the same? This repetitive duality—the doubled presence of watchers and the projection within a projection—is reminiscent of the theory that every time one recalls a memory, they are actually instead thinking back to the last time they remembered it. The past is disassembled and reconstructed, morphing and changing with the passage of time.
“Submerged in Time” treats memory with a reverence, upholding its intense power, mystery, and ever-looming presence. Instead of taking a decidedly pessimistic or optimistic stance on the entanglement of the past and present, the Safarani sisters embrace seemingly conflicting emotions buried in memory, allowing them to coexist. A singular, definitive message does not emerge; rather, viewers are invited to experience their own emotional response when confronted with the complex pain and beauty of memory.
“Safarani Sisters: Submerged in Time” is on view through September 28 at ShowUp, 524B Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA.
