Shiva Aliabadi

Artist Statement:

I often use malleable materials such as rubbers, plastics, and thin copper sheets, to express a sense of constant change and displacement. I create records of specific places and experiences, either in the form of discrete objects (painting/sculpture), rubbings, drawn impressions, or installations. These artworks-as-records are sometimes precarious or non-archival. This intentional fragility points to the fact that, in the end, even our records cease to last, fading in memory like our life stories; it also addresses my concern over whether an immigrant will ever feel at home once displaced. As an Iranian immigrant who came to the US in 1983, soon after the Hostage Crisis, I faced an American culture that told us we did not belong. This lack of inclusion marked itself on me, informing my feeling of groundlessness. I have moved around incessantly in the US over the years, attempting to anchor down a place of true inclusion, yet that anchor has never landed. Instead, I have collected objects and essences of people as I have moved, attempting, through my art, to reign in a steady storyline of my life via still-lifes, relief-structural paintings, installations, and portraits of those I meet.

Taken from Wikipedia, Anthropogeography:

"Anthropogeography is the branch of geography that deals with humans and their communities, cultures, economies, and interactions with the environment by studying their relations with and across locations.[1] It analyzes patterns of human social interaction, their interactions with the environment, and their spatial interdependencies by application of qualitative and quantitative research methods.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_geography