Zendegi

Lar, the city where I live, is a full-scale representation of a world full of despair and emptiness: waterless, grassless, ruthless, and disappointing. I used to walk in that scorching heat on its yellow, barren soil. Here, nature is indifferent and base, full of depression and emptiness. In this void, I saw the decayed bones of dead animals that, like definitive signs of "nothingness," had emerged from the heart of the earth. At first, this naked encounter aroused anxiety in me. The bones, bleached white under the hot Lar sun, were a message for me about my own inevitable fate: to cease to exist.
With every encounter, my being was filled with horror and my heartbeat would rise.
I didn't even like to look at the bones. Eventually, I took 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 last fears. I was no longer afraid of the bones; instead, I loved them. Now they had become part of my life's journey.
I took the bones to the studio and carefully arranged them all on the old wooden table. I watched them for long minutes, then I picked up a rapidograph pen and white cardboard and began to draw the largest skull I had found from the heart of the earth. Every hatch on the surface of the cardboard calmed my heart more 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🙂