UAL x OCAD
Outside In Conference
Hello!
I want to start this talk with a question. I want you to close your eyes and think about this question.
What does the landscape that you feel most belonged to look like? Does it have mountains or rivers? Or is it next to the sea? How does it feel there? Is it dry? Or is it wet and rainy? Do you hear any sounds like specific birds or crickets?
I'm gonna give you a few seconds
Okay, you can open your eyes. Well, thank you for joining me in thinking about these questions. I've been thinking about it quite a lot actually.
The landscape that I most feel belonged has lots of mountains and vast fields. I lived in Iran for 29 years. I moved here eight months ago. And I actually realized that I missed the mountains quite a lot. I caught myself looking for mountains on the horizon since there are no mountains in London.
Moving here made me realize how deeply I feel belonged to the mountains that were in the background image for the majority of my life.
In the culture that I grew up in, there are lots of ancient cities with very similar architecture to the landscape they are placed in. As you can see in these images, the landscape is very present in the old city of Yazd. In the top left picture, you can see the desert that is very close to Yazd, and in the two other images, you can see parts of the old city of Yazd. You can see the materials, even the forms are very similar to the landscape that is close to the city. I think this plays a significant role in the sense of belonging of the locals towards that landscape.
There are also lots of stories in our culture, and many of them actually happen in the landscape of Iran.
One of these very famous stories is the story of Kings Zahhak. This is a mythical story mentioned in Shahnameh, which is an epic poem book by Ferdowsi. He spent about 35 years of his life, about 1000 years ago, writing this book including many folklore stories. So, Zahhak was the king of Iran. The devil visited him and to seduce him, kissed his shoulders. And from the places of the devil’s kisses, two snakes grew.
Those snakes would only eat brains, so for feeding them two young Iranians had to be killed each day to feed their brains to the snakes. In the end, at some point, Iranians stood up against Zahhak, chained him up, and locked him in one of the caves in Damavand Mountain, which is the highest mountain in Iran. When I was camping next to Damavand Mountain years ago, I was thinking about this story. I was imagining that if this mythical story was true, maybe I could still hear Zahhak screaming, being chained up in a cave in Damavand.
Another story is a very tragic mythical love story that happens in Bisitun Mountain and is about the carvings on this mountain. So, Shirin was a Persian Princess and Fahad was in love with her. There was also this king named Khosrow that was in love with Shirin, and just not to let these two get together Khosrow told Farhad that if he carved the Bisitun Mountain, he would let him have a chance with Shirin. That was an impossible mission, right? Farhad spent decades carving the mountain, and he finally did it.
When he was done, King Khosrow lied to him by saying that Shirin is dead. Farhad disappointedly in love, killed himself by throwing himself down from the mountain. And since Shirin was also in love with Farhad, when she heard the news, she also ended her life.
There are lots of features in Iran's landscape that can be seen frequently in the art of the region. For example, urials. Urial is a kind of animal that can be seen in the nature of Iran and also very frequently in different forms of art. They can be seen in carvings of Persepolis an ancient city from 2500 years ago. Urials are also in many miniature paintings, and paintings on ancient ceramics found in Iran.
Another example is a type of tree named Cypress, which is a very popular tree in the city where I grew up: Shiraz. Cypresses are also depicted in the carvings of Persepolis. You can see them in a painting on an old tile or even woven into an antique rug.
I believe that seeing these features in real life and also frequently in art forms can encourage people to grow a sense of belonging towards the landscape that they live in. For example, when I see these figures I feel a connection with them like I know their joys and struggles. I think they looked at similar mountains in the evenings and appreciated their beauty. They live next to similar trees that I grew up close to. I think I know how much they valued water, because of the climate that we're used to living in. I have a strong sense of belonging towards all these people and their struggles.
When I started this research thought that this is about art and how it plays a significant role in creating belongingness towards the landscape of our homelands. But the more I thought about it and the more researched about it, the more I realized that it's mostly about stories and the stories that are represented through art. I made this piece based on the idea of how these stories are passed through generations, just like how honey is passed through these vessels as they're all connected to each other. The channels between them represent the communication and storytelling, to pass the story to the next generation. At some point, there might be a generation that doesn't care about those stories anymore. I think that might be the case for many children of immigrants because they are living a very different life from their parents. They might not care about the story of King Zahhak or Shireen and Farhad anymore because they don't have that kind of connection with that landscape.
One of the main questions I had, when I started this research, was how can art help with building belongingness towards a new landscape after immigration, since that was something that I was struggling with myself after moving to the UK. A few weeks ago, I went on a hiking trip in the south of the UK. I hiked for about 10 hours in the hills between Eastbourne, Alfriston village, and Seven Sisters, and I constantly found myself looking for similar landscapes to Iran’s. For example, in the bottom left image, which I took on that hike I found very similar scenery to one of my paintings from a landscape in the north of Iran. The rice fields and cows that were the view of my house at the time can be seen in the painting which is called Where I Used to Call Home.
During this research, I realized that maybe the only way to grow a sense of belonging towards the landscape of a new country is by creating new stories. So, I applied this idea to my neighborhood in London and a street that is right in front of my house. I made a map from all the stories I have created on this street during the months I've been here. There's this Magnolia tree in the yard of one of the houses and one of my friends in Iran has the same tree in his yard. Seeing these beautiful flowers at the beginning of spring made me think of him because I knew that his tree had flowers around the same time. That’s why I drew a flower on my map. House number 19 is where I got some wood from. They have lots of wood in their yard and they were not using them so I asked them if it was okay for me to take some for my artwork and they accepted. Each of the signs that are on my map has a story behind them.
At the beginning of this research, I was quite hopeful that I would be able to find a way to use art as a tool for creating a sense of belonging for immigrants that have moved to a new country. But at this stage, I'm not that optimistic anymore. I'm not sure if these individual stories will be as powerful as those social ancient stories that I grew up with in my homeland. Those kinds of stories have passed through centuries and generations of Iranians have told them to their children.
But who knows? I’ve only been here for eight months, so we'll see!
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References:
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