Garden is a double channel video installation that explores the nature of space within specific buildings encouraging presence of being and contemplation. The video begins with the image of the dome of a mosque. A dove overflies it from one side to another. As background the spectator can listen to distort echoes of the call to prayer and the dove callings that resonate in the dome. Slowly, the image changes to the passage of the ablutions courtyard of another mosque, there is no ritual happening and we can hear and see shallows’ and the reflection of a man who lies near the source of water. A woman in chador passes. The dome serves, as a transition to the next image of the reflection to a courtyard, this time is a secular building with a fountain garden. Here, the viewer can see the reflection of woman who comes, sits and the inner porch of the building. The video ends going back to the dome, in a loop circle. Garden was recorded at various locations in Iran, has no explicit narrative is rather a subtle attempt to get into a meditative state where we can make multiple readings. The video and the buildings encourage contemplation of the interior spaces, with their repetitive geometric patterns, similar to natural foliage. The places transcend into the abstraction and transmit symbolic meaning. The image of the dome is hypnotic, at times reminds one eye that seems an optical illusion, a feeling that rouses with the dove and the repetitive sounds.
Garden is an analogy between architecture and nature, and the polarity of the presence and absence, sensorial perfection of reflections and geometry in the spaces, but also tries to add social and political connotations with emphasis on religious issues and social interaction in a country that has its image abroad distorted by politicians, religious people and media communication.