shirin bolourchi

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.