Zendegi

Lar, the city where I live, is a panoramic tableau of a world full of despair and emptiness: waterless, grassless, ruthless, and hopeless. I used to walk on its yellow, barren soil in that scorching heat. Here, nature is indifferent and base, full of depression and emptiness. In this void, I would see the rotted bones of dead animals, which, like definitive signs of "nothingness," had emerged from the heart of the earth. At first, this raw encounter stirred anxiety within me. The bones, bleached white under the hot Lar sun, were a message to me about my own inevitable fate: to cease to exist.
With every encounter, my being would fill with horror and my heart rate would rise.
I didn't even like to look at the bones. Eventually, I sought refuge from fear in fear itself.
Little by little, I started collecting the bones I saw.
I would take the bones home, and while simultaneously feeling afraid, curious, and eager, I would wash and clean them in a ritualistic manner.

This process of cleaning the bones washed away my final fears. I was no longer afraid of the bones; instead, I loved them. Now, they had become a part of my life's journey.
I took the bones to the studio and carefully arranged them all on an old wooden table. I would watch them for long minutes, then I picked up a technical pen and a piece of white cardboard and began drawing the largest skull I had found from the depths of the earth. Every hatch mark on the surface of the cardboard calmed my heart and filled my being with peace.
From then on, the bones are no longer symbols of death and nothingness for me, but rather symbols of creation. Symbols of the birth of a new work of art on the white heart of the paper🙂