6 weeks ago

“Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other.” Let’s practice to not play a role of a victim. For too much pain that I had inside I knew that I was missing something. Gynecologist such a hard word for my Iranian accent to pronounce, She said the embryo is dead.  There’s no hope,only one way, to take it out: D N C.

Let’s practice to not play fragile as a woman! Let’s celebrtae the emptiness of 3000 years in gold & marble! Let’s celebrate misogyny! Let’s celebrate Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles 3 million times.

For what you eat and wear from this world,
You have vindication, if you try to gain it.
The rest all cost nothing even for free. Be aware.
Not to sell your precious life for that                            ” Khayyám”

Today is a very sad day for United States of America and for immigrants like myself, who immigrated for hope. We became refugees to this country in order to settle, study and then to take-up employment. Trump’s travel ban generally prohibited or severely restricted immigration from countries suffering tyranny. If people with authoritarian leaders are banned from entering this country, then what makes America great again?! In fact, people from those countries, who were banned today, are the most scared and vulnerable, never been involved in any act of terrorism in the United States.

The whole air is heavily charged with fears of our unprincipled leaders: desire of being secured that kills democracy. I love Los Angeles for people, who treat each others with respect, despite their race, color of their skin or ideological commitment.

Dear me;It’s that time of the year I should confess by far I can’t write, I don’t really feel like talking to anyone these days I don’t trust my passport anymore. Wish you could tell me what’s happening to me? It’s 9; 51 I’m in the his room still writing my thesis, struggling not to think about my deadlines it’s a quiet room I can’t write in my own room anymore. I’m transforming in to something icy I guess. I was just imagining how Liberia and Siberia sounds poetic as one they both speak together. If I could talk to her in Korean I would have told her life is too short drink some wine tonight then smile to the world that’s what I’ve been told and it worked for me. Could you please tell her for me? He picks up the envelope; he looks in to my eyes,I believe he is talking to me I’m trying to pick up his voice, sounds soft and low I’ve already missed half of the conversation, as always, when I catch him I hear; where is the destination of this letter I take a deep breath trying to pretend I’m calm though anyone could see the pink flame in my eyes by now, I say “No destination”, No destination is quite a destination he continues, they have asked for two quite different types & it’s been days I’m wondering why. Is United States a different country? he picks the envelope instantly, continues what is the difference? I hate to say that he reminds me of my childhood; “God created critical thinking so that I could travel to my childhood” Then I come back to my writing how I wish I were in New York tonight for all is crazy in there. My mind is still in the crit room, my phone never ring again.

Attention, Attention the sign hearing declares danger or red status meaning that the air strike will be done! Leave your office and go to the shelter!

اُزیریس ایزد جهان زیرزمینی و زندگی پس از مرگ در اساطیر مصر باستان بود. او فرزند گب (زمین) و نوت (آسمان) بود. با خواهرش ایزیس ازدواج کرد و صاحب حوروس شد. برادرش ست (شب) او را کشت. اما زنده شد و خدای اموات گشت. ارواح قبل از اینکه بتوانند در جهان دیگر زندگی کنند، باید از برابر ازیریس بگذرند و تنها او بود که می‌توانست جاودانگی ببخشد

 Known here as the “bible” of theatre.

دی ماه، نخستین روز آن خرم روز است و این روز و ماه هر دو به نام خداوند است که [هرمز] نامیده می‌شود، یعنی حکیم و دارای رای و آفریدگار. در این روز عادت ایرانیان چنین بوده که پادشاه از تخت شاهی پایین می‌آمد و جامه‌ای سفید می‌پوشید و در بیابان بر فرش‌های سپید می‌نشست و دربان و یساولان را که شکوه پادشاه با آن هاست به کنار می‌راند و هر کس که می‌خواست پادشاه را ببیند، خواه دارا و خواه نادار بدون هیچ گونه نگهبان و پاسبان، نزد شاه می‌رفت و با او به گفتگو می‌پرداخت و در این روز پادشاه با برزگران می‌نشست و در یک سفره با آن‌ها خوراک می‌خورد و می‌گفت: من مانند یکی از شماها هستم و با شماها برادرم، زیرا استواری و پایداری جهان به کارهایی است که به دست شما انجام می‌شود و امنیت کشور نیز با من است، نه پادشاه را از مردم گریزی است و نه مردم را از پادشاه

It’s the girl of all the winds
who falls in to pieces, 
from a roof top to another
in her red-stockings.

marsh land of her tears 

are the passage of spring

upon the heavyness of her eye lids

It’s the girl of all the winds,

at this moment in time

herself,hers only saint guardian.

selfish of her own pain

at the mistaken place,

perhaps  

I woke up that morning, I knew that the summer has arrived. Crawling in my bed I also knew that this Summer I could not get back to Tehran. Struggling not to think about it too much to be able to survive my first summer in Los Angeles. It’s been 10 years now that I’ve been socializing with my best friends in Tehran through the lens of my and my [face timing] on my iPhone. The lunacy started so recently while me and my friends have started making love to each other in between of those screens, seems we were all prisoners of our 5.4 to 2.6 inches. Among all I was the most angry, the most deranged, full of hatred for the term migration. Asking myself constantly through my nightlong and my day time what is the reality of all those virtual communications? What am I doing to my own psyche? The next day when I woke up quickly and unexpectedly I removed all those applications on my iPhone jumped in to my car and drove for 45 minutes [that’s how long I usually drive to get to my studio at Otis.] I could feel my wet eyes by now. Trying to be brutal to those eyes and to stay concentrated on the road in front. I was so panicked for the amount of silence been invited to my life all at once by myself.

[45 minutes later]

I discovered myself in my studio with my iPhone almost dead

I was so confused mentally, not able to position my psyche in her previous state anymore, A very radical decision been made by me and now I had no way out except for letting the fear out by bringing it in to life on the surface of my paper. Then started to draw my psyche on my paper. For the first time in my life I had this expression of a prisoner who had been released from her jail. I could not control myself not painting. My world instantly got rotated and my addiction to Tehran was alternated within my new paintings. Now everyday at the moment Tehran’s Addiction was coming up in to my psyche instead of contributing myself in to my iPhone I was becoming an asylum to my papers and my brushes. I continued this practice every day for almost 3 months. I painted all my fears in my plain loneliness only talking to myself constantly striving to create a visual vocabulary where I could travel to Tehran with. Drawing my self-imagination at the point where induces so many images. The silence I’ve never experienced before.

During the summer I’ve created over 200s of images and been invited To 4 group exhibitions in Los Angeles. In-between I found that chance to collaborate with my Creative team “Green Circle” as a being a curator of the spectacular project. Today I’m really surprised on how one could divorce one certain predefined lifestyle and how to visualize and create her own vocabulary. Even now I’m so scared while writing my story in English as it’s my second language.

Since me and my friends are not face timing anymore we have posted more than 1000 of images on our Instagram during the summer.

Being sentence to 16 Years of prison might seem like a sentence in this class, 16 years of prison is a deadly punishment is a brutal gift coming to an artist from a repressive religious regime is uncivilized, barbarian, 16 years of punishment is a terrifying nightmare not knowing why you are locked up, 16 years of prison only because you are defending basic human rights, 16 years of prison only for what you are drawing and writing perceived as threat to the system. Being held in solitary confinement with no formal charges brought against you, all you know is all your professors are in prison for being a prominent intellectual figure.

Human rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization. When a person is humiliated, when his rights are being violated, and he does not have the proper education, naturally he gravitates toward terrorism.  “Shirin Ebadi”

Each time I fall in love I think of Jacques Lacan and his famous sentence “What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them gives you the universe? “Lacan”

Then I instantly remind myself that I’m entering in to my darkness and there is nothing to do with my lovers but for the sun is setting and Culver City is getting dark. I learned the sun set in southern California is my crucial enemy. I still remember when I moved to California I was crying by each sunset, funny ha?!. Every time I think deeply and each time I’m honest with myself I found that I’ve devoted lifetime making you satisfied for I always give you more than what I get. That Tuesday I texted you to come and change the wall and the line that you have used for your installation, I argued along the negative space and some curatorial decision making. You said that you knew this all and you take responsibility for the way you decided to install all the images. I insisted that you still should come and reconsider the wall that you have chosen, Suddenly you said you are feeling turned on by those lines, those texts. You said you are not able concentrating on the images for I killed all the aesthetics in your mind. I said I’m not scared, as I know the pleasure of the text.

I thought I moved on, you are still writing to me I was also thinking if there might

Be a way that we could at least talk to each other as two civilized human beings at least for the language we still share.

After Jacques Lacan I sent you a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, I’ve used this poem in-between of the video art I made at the time I was living in Toronto. I still go back to Eglinton sometimes, below my image I wrote for you; to you “ Civilized

Society’s animal.” Then I typed the poem;

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

So many things seem filled with the intent

To be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster 


Of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 


The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

Places, and names, and where it was you meant

To travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

Next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

Some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

The art of losing’s not too hard to master

Though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

” ELIZABETH BISHOP” The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

Soon after we got separated I left Tehran. I don’t see Touraj any longer

I don’t know if you are still talking to him. I’ve never missed anyone in my life

The way I miss talking to Touraj, you asked me several times; “ So have you

Been with Touraj, that’s why you love him?”. I always had the same answer for

You; “I’ve never been with Touraj but I’m so influenced by him.”

I thought I was so influenced by him. You were so jealous about it. In retrospect

I feel I love him and also I’m so influenced by him.

All these days I was transforming to my new identity. I celebrated our separation

Several times. By now “I should confess I could be a plain mirror in there to observe self-adornment before entering.”

How I feel tonight I’ve finally started writing my thesis with you with Touraj

With my new Political Iranian American Canadian Russian identity with the sound of Philip Glass. Metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis to catharsis was curated in 2015 for the first time in Los Angeles By Shirin Bolourchi at Otis College of art and Design. For Shirin Metamorphosis to Catharsis is a center of identical and cultural change related to Iranian identity in Los Angeles. In my eyes modern society and technology defines us as individuals. We can all perceive the same concept at the same time, yet our interpretation and experience of the identity; time and space will be unique for each individual. Since we all bring our own life’s experiences to how we see a shared reality, then for me as an Iranian visual artist the question of what is identity is at the stake. Is ones identity of our own making, or do things such as media and propaganda, Time and space, society whom you socialize with, frustration and repression coming from a repressive regime like where I grew up then manufactures my identity? Is identity simply a simulation? A concept? does identity even exist? The artists in Metamorphosis to Catharsis desire to explore this concept. Each has their own vision, their own visual vocabulary to how they perceive their identical world. We have gathered together representing our honest identity in form of art. Metamorphosis to catharsis is a symbol of our dialectic. We hope for annulment of fraudulent reform in the name of fine art. Our identity has no specific image in here. We the members of the Metamorphosis to catharsis have one duty: creating a new rhythm for the benefit of our honesty. We believe in the present. What we are exhibiting here is a dance on our surfaces. We create unity within our pieces; we are criticizing the aesthetic of

Repression and isolation the frustration of repressive regimes only those who do the same shall come with us. So far Metamorphosis to catharsis had three openings and two weeks show in Otis College of Art and Design since 2015. Our group had a significant line of attention from the curators and critics in Los Angeles and as a curator I am hoping to travel through time and space with my spectacular group of visual artists.

“I don’t want to be labeled as anything I’d like to be able to express my ideas my feelings about the society that I live in. I don’t like anybody to tell me what to do, what not to do. The government of Iran doesn’t like my painting; the previous government also didn’t like my painting. I’ve been in trouble with the previous government and I’m in trouble with the Islamic Republic of Iran too, And it’s only because of the paintings. I’m not even an activist.”