Garden of Memories

By exploring the layers of a floral motif ” Gole Shah Abbasi” of Persian carpets, and remaking it in ceramic materials (by extruding), The Garden of Memories is a reflection on how historical objects and motifs are carriers of the past and translators of untold stories to a new generation who may forget or receive the distorted versions of their heritage.

In Persian culture creation of gardens is a metaphor for the creation of Paradise on earth and it revives the connection of the human with the infinite world. The image of lush gardens and flowers has been variously reflected in Persian architecture, carpet designs, ceramics, etc. Generations have passed but the garden motifs have continuously repeated, reconstructed, and recorded the worldview of a civilization which is today encountered with different levels of conflict all over its cultural map.

In the process of remaking the motif in clay and entrusting its fragments to the kiln, the fired objects traveled through time and gradually aged by passing through one physical and chemical state to another. The deconstructed form, is it reflecting a ruin? A struggle for reconstruction or is it unveiling the incapability of the obscure observer in accessing the content behind the world of the gardens?