Metamorphosis of Memories
Ghazal Abdolhosseini
See it On Campus: Level 2
Visitor InfoRBC Gallery
Ghazal Abdolhosseini
BFA – Visual Arts
Artist Statment
I have an interdisciplinary art practice where the mediums I use depend on concept. My work has consisted mostly of installation, performance, and video art that engages with epistemological questions about life, ephemerality and eternity. An important aspect of my performance work is that it should be spontaneous, transparent, and shows my own inherent vulnerability towards the audience. To help support these ideas I use a material that is as transparent as possible, but also ephemeral, so that the material, light projection and structure for my installations become a space where everything happens at the moment, after which everything is recycled, and to be “forgotten”.
My process of art-making involves the process of knowing myself better and healing from my traumas. I believe it is meditative to make art that questions, solve, responds and observes the things around me through my particular use of concepts and materials. Therefore, I think of art as a therapy for myself and my audience where we can find ourselves or even get lost in thoughts.
All these aspects like therapy, healing, transparency, and ephemerality are part of the space that I create. This is a space where I can move around and be unconscious of my surroundings as if I am living in my utopia.
Installation View at RBC Gallery
Metamorphosis of Memories, 2022
Mixed Media, chiffon fabric, rope, projector.
I have worked with memory and memories as a theme. I have dedicated this work to my grandfather, who had Alzheimer’s and forgot us each day more than yesterday. I wrote a poem about our memories in English and Farsi and included the only three dialogues I had with him in it. As the viewers moved forward, the poem would disappear through different layers of fabrics overlapping.
Interwoven, 2021
Mixed media, Yarn.
I have surrounded myself with knots in this performance to represent moments in life that we have created or caused by ourselves. This performance is the result of 8 spontaneous hours that I have edited into 5 minutes and used overlapping strategies to emphasize on passage of time. This performance is influenced by Maria Chavez’s interview, where she said “Sometimes we need to take a step back and allow things to go out of control, and not see it as something you need to fix, but something you just experience.” Accordingly, I wanted to experience and tended to open these knots patiently throughout the performance. Therefore, by the end of the performance, I have decided to embrace the yarn knots and accept them the way they are.
Self Freeing, 2021
Mixed media, white fabric, plaster, yarn.
In the soul of each of us, there is always a way to reach perfection, and it is nothing but passing and liberation from self …
