FARVASH, artist

Tell us something about yourself?

I am born in Iran and wish I was an alchemist 2000 years ago or an alchemist 2000 years from today.

Do you separate yourself from your art?

I cannot as my work is embodiment and fragments of my reality. My art is a way to understand my values, interests, traumas, desires, past and future life. It comes from a deeply personal space.

Do you consider yourself an artist or a designer?

If I need to label - I am definitely an artist, but l also see myself as a scientist. I design methods, processes within the framework of art and science. When I was younger, I didn’t differentiate between design, art and science. I saw everything from the perspective of creativity. But our society, capitalism, and social structures force us to decide and think very binary. “I am This”.For me, art is a platform allowing our realities or philosophy, socio-political issues to come together without the need for an explanation.

What is your creative process?

I have many, but I iterate, and I never finish deliberately. I am a process-based artist and the only time I “finish” something is in the moment of presentation, and even then, it is never finished. It is packaged to be understood in that specific moment, in that specific context. Everything I do is a continuation of the next. I work within multiple directions at the same time. People find it complicated because they want to label and define me, and that is against my whole way of looking at life. Conceptualization is a product of the capital, simplify to be able to convey or sell. I don’t care about that anymore.

You often wear a mask in your performance acts, why?

Because I see myself as faceless, I don’t know really who I am. I see my personality as a construction of my background, class, trauma, interest, culture, and most importantly, I know that I am an adaptation to society. The idea of fixed identity, sexuality, and opinions goes against my values. I see interactions as strategies.

Behind the mask

A portrait series exploring identity, passion and dreams.