Dispossetion – Installation - Dispossetion project also has a physical installation comprised of a printed image mounted on a mirror then cut in the checkered pattern so the viewers could see themselves as they get close to the piece, some jars with a fake product label which contained satirical metaphors about migration, and a satellite dish with a video projected on it through a diamond so the light rays would be diffracted. The whole installation in relation to the website, all points to the issues that I was dealing with as an Iranian migrant.
Dispossetion - This work is a website and you can visit here: http://dispossetion.com/ ----------------
“nationality before humanity”
This was my first impression after coming from an undeveloped country to a developed one. Having the “right nationality” in many cases means the right to have more opportunities and privileges than the ones with the nationality of the wrong place. Therefore, nationality has become more of a commodity which people seek for having an equally qualified life. But who defines right and wrong nationalities? Who labels them? And above that, who chooses their nationality? These where the main questions that I’ve been asking myself through this time.
I chose Netherlands to continue my education and that made me an Iranian migrant. Despite all the tests and evaluations that I’ve been through to be considered as an “eligible person” to be in this country, I still have neither similar rights to a person with the nationality of a developed country nor treated the same way.
In this work, I tried to force the viewer into a semi-similar experience with help of the features and disciplines of internet as my medium. This work is an audio-visual interactive website which is called Dispossetion.
The second part of the website contains a map that seems normal but is actually distorted and is intended to not work properly. Therfore, if the visitors search a location in the map, it will lead them to one of the random false locations that I made by manipulating some images from the Google Earth.
This is the link to the artwork.
http://dispossetion.com/
Glitch - Every person is constantly being exposed to his/her surroundings. Even if you trap someone in a room with no object or not even light, the darkness becomes what makes the environment. Since this environment in which the artists live, has a great impact on their minds, it is essential for the artist to study the relation between him and the environment.
In this work, I tried to show my surroundings to which I have recently immigrated, in the way that I see them in my mind: vague, unreal and confined. It all started from the beginning of my immigration that I wanted to know this place better through taking photos from different parts of the city. And by knowing this new place better, I was willing to avoid the “touristic vision” that could potentially appear in my work. But after a while that I got used to the newness of this new place, I decided to focus on showing it through my point of view.
In this project, I took many pictures from different parts of the city I live in and also from some other cities in the Netherlands that I wasn’t familiar with, but I could find some visual similarities. Then by mixing them I tried to create a world that defies its own existence. I named this project “Glitch” to be a reference to this theory that says: we are living in a simulation.
