Illustrating immigrant stories | Research | University of Minnesota Duluth

Inspired by her own experience and challenges as an immigrant, Maryam Khaleghi Yazdi, professor of graphic design at UMD, is working to share other immigrants’ stories. Using interview recordings as her source material, Khaleghi brings immigrant stories to life through animation, mixed media, drawing, illustration, sculpture, and textiles.

Maryam Khaleghi Yazdi points to some seashells sewn to a quilted panel that has bright colors and white lace

Her current project, Say Sew, is a series of large mixed media quilts. Made up of 78 tableaus, each representing one person’s story of immigration, this project is a series of large mixed media quilts. When exhibited, each quilt will be interactive, so when audiences touch it, they will hear the recordings of those immigrants narrating their own stories, in interviews recorded by the journalist collective, Newest Americans.

Several of the quilted and emroidered blocks from Maryam Khaleghi Yazdi's latest piece, Say Sew, are draped over the floor of her studio, featuring bright colors and patterns with white borders

Maryam Khaleghi Yazdi holds up one of the quilts she's crafted

Maryam Khaleghi Yazdi sits at a worktable in her studio, surrounded by her art, while holding markers and smiling at the camera

An overhead photo shows Maryam Khaleghi Yazdi creating an animation using a laptop and large digital art tablet with a stylus, which shows the start of a blue human fiigure