Bones of the Earth, bones of the sea (in dialogue with Tahmineh Monzavi’s “LUT/BADLAND” video, 11’7”, ed.1/3 , 2021, videographer - Maziyar Moshtagh Gohari)

Site specific installation, shells, corals, rocks, 2022

Dimensions vary The desert known as Lut in southeastern Iran, is one of the hottest places on Earth, and home to extraordinary landscapes of dunes and rock formations, organic shapes thatthrough Monzavi’s lens, become fleshly, sensual and abstract. Dunes fold into whimsical curvaceous lines, which have an appeal that straight lines and rough edges cannot invoke. Curves are lines of beauty that speak to us on some deeply instinctual level. Video with vernacular lullabies in the background immerses the viewer into this striking land even more and extolls a meditative stillness, rapture and reverie. “Bones of the Earth, bones of the sea” – is a site specific installation conceived as a reaction to “Lut”. Out of this world scenery resembles to the Mangistau region in Kazakhstan, which used to be the bottom of the ancient Tethys Ocean. Shells here are an attribute of femininity and gentle power, an allegory of crossing the sea, the solitary pursuit of a shrine or some chimeric divine revelation. And the spirals, as the whirling air in thunder and storms, movement of the waters, denote dynamic aspect of things.