ABSTRACT
Farah Bajull focuses on her formative years particularly the impact of leaving her family in Iran to study in England in 1977. Iran was where she spent her childhood and early adolescence during the Shah’s reign, prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution. Her parents are both from the nomadic Bakhtiari tribe in southwestern Iran. As well as their tribal dialect and customs, both of her parents embraced different art and cultural influences from around the world and had a diverse circle of friends including Armenians, Jews, and Baha’is. Although she was too young to be involved in political activities, Bajull absorbed tensions around her at that time. Through unpacking her own experience of dislocation, loss, and separation upon moving to London as a 15-year-old, Bajull explores key themes relating to migration, and the complexities of identity formation when living between cultures. Training first in art and then art psychotherapy gave her a language to explore her past, something she tries to pass on to the young people she works with in her role as a secondary school-based psychotherapist.
