Meet Sophie Benini Pietromarchi, a French Italian illustrator and author of The Book Book (published by Tarabooks). On the days leading up to this year’s celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, she organized two workshops at the Freer|Sackler. Attendees produced illustrated folios of the stories of Rustam and the Simurgh from the Persian national epic: the Shahnama.
In the video, Benini gives her unique perspective on what it means to create art and what she feels is the role of museums in modern society. She begins by sharing how it dawned upon her to create a bookmaking guide for children and how the same themes of curiosity and artistic exploration inspired her to organize her collage-based workshops. Describing her own process of creating illustrations for La legión perdida (published by Thule), she notes that she drew upon mosaic art she directly observed in museums.
Benini also notes that one of the main ideas of her workshop was not only to celebrate Persian culture, but to help draw out the innate curiosity of children and demonstrate to them they have the power to create. She credits her friend Azar Nafisi, with whom she collaborated to produce the book Bibi e la voce verde (published by Adelphi), for her interest in Persian culture.
Arguing that the museum is one of the few institutions in contemporary society that cares for preserving human culture, Benini reminds us that museums like the Freer|Sackler have a significant role to play in providing sources of inspiration for us all.
Benini’s workshops were generously supported by the Foundation for Iranian Studies.
