SHADES OF IRAN
Series of 21 pairs of stones collected in the mountains of Iran and photographed outdoors with natural light on August 16th 2015, between 09h12 and 09h36.
What’s the point of exhibiting stones?
My family emigrated from Iran to France when I was 8 years old. I have never lived there again except for a six-month period in 2002 when we moved to Tehran with my husband. But I go back almost every summer.
People always ask me: so do you enjoy yourself in Iran?
It’s not so much that I enjoy myself, I just feel good when I’m in Iran.
Physically good.
It’s like I’m in tune with the climate, with the light, with the air, with the stones. I think my cells have the same molecular combination as these stones.
So I collected these and brought them back to Barcelona with me this summer as a means to hang on to the physical sensation of being in the mountains I love.
These stones are me and I am them.
This work is really just another form of self-portraiture, genre that got me started in art-making.
I also like the play between the permanence of stones versus the temporality of shadows. In order to reproduce these exact shadows, one would have to go to Iran on August 16th, at the exact same coordinates and at the exact same time.
By photographing the shadows projected by these stones I meant to capture an instant of my eternity.
And finally, because I just find them beautiful.
Mariam Shambayati
Nov 7th 2015, Barcelona