Melody Adly engages with rotting, rooting, and decay through materials and processes including repurposed rotting wood, clay, written preservation and weaving. Her work places organic rot in tension with systemic rot and rupture seen through a lens of grief. Here, she takes azgil (in Farsi) as a starting point. Azgil is a fruit that requires bletting, a fermentation process in which the fruit rots before ripening.  Adly’s father has found methods of forcing the fruit to undergo bletting in an environment that doesn’t allow azgil to freeze and thaw while still on the tree.

Four handwoven textiles softly reflect on pieces of poetry turned to again and again for sitting with grief and inspiring community-driven resistance. Repetition becomes a symbol for community, as well as a reflection of practice and process. A repeated bird motif references a Persian poem titled, “The Conference of the Birds” by Farid un-Din Attar. The poem explores the journey of birds as they set out to find their king, the Simorgh. The thirty birds who make it to the end of the story are met with a mirror and discover that they were searching for themselves, together. For Adly, this poem is a beautiful reflection of organizing solidarity in a contemporary setting. Another weaving references a poem from Solmaz Sharif’s book of poems titled, “Look,” which calls for naming things what they are by considering the language of violence. Another transcribes a recipe, referencing the preservation of culture through food traditions.