من خود از این تیره خاک رُسته بودم / I Myself Grew from this Murky Soil
I came to soil through death. Decay is the condition of new life. My body will return to the ground, and something will grow from it. Steer is the drawing material, collected from gardens, sand extraction sites, and turbah, the compressed earth Muslims use during prayer, which I have known since childhood through touch and taste.
Lotus leaves become the medium for drawing, just as the body is the medium through which experience is lived.
The lotus begins in mud. Its roots press into sediment at the bottom of murky water, and the stem rises through darkness, and the flower opens above the surface toward the light.
Across cultures, the lotus symbolises renewal and resilience, and in ancient Persian culture, the lotus, or niloofar, was associated with rebirth and peace. Its cycle of opening and closing with the sun made it a symbol of continuity, transformation, and the movement between darkness and light.
The work is a collaboration between me, the soil, and the lotus leaves. None of us is in full control. My role is to remain present enough to notice, and restrained enough not to overwrite what the materials are already doing.
Mold grows where it will. Where moisture and soil meet, life follows according to its own timing. The work changes between one visit and the next. What appears on the leaf today may disappear tomorrow. Mountains and trees drawings follow what the material has made.
In this work, decay is not failure or an ending, but the condition of transformation. Attentiveness becomes the method: to wait before acting, to look before marking, to let the medium propose before the hand decides.
