2018
800×350 cm (room 1) – 390×160 cm (room 2) – mixed media
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150 Days is an installation in which I captured the memories of my day to day life as a new-comer in Zurich.
I started with photo documentation of my daily routines using my smart phone. The choice of the smart phone was due to its convenience, portability, and availability, as I would always have it with me. Once the photo documentation was turned into a part of my daily routine, I started ending each day with writ¬ing a short paragraph about the day. I used the collection of these texts and photos to find new ways to think about my daily memories, and to reproduce them later, while reminiscing about my days. I have found the reproduction of memory as an intriguing tool for redefining the trajectory of my daily life.

150 days has been shown as a solo show at AB43 Contemporary Gallery in April, 2018 in Switzerland.
Together with Peter Fischer, the curator of the exhibition, we adapted two different approaches toward the installation. In one room we made a cloud of photos, drawings, and texts in an organic style. In the other room we showed one image together with the text of a day in a grid, similar to a calendar. Images and texts that were selected to appear in this part are five days apart.

The drawings are the product of a decision I made to re-visualize my everyday memories. I have digitally overlaid selected images with low opacity and printed the resulting image on tracing paper, using a laser printer. Then, on the back of the paper, I drew the outlines of whatever I could recognize from mixed forms. Finally, using a cutter blade, I scratched the printed image from the other side of the paper, keep¬ing my drawings as the final product.
The selection of the images is subjective and mimics the way the brain processes memories, keeping the important or favorite parts close and the others to the depths of the unconscious mind.

Another medium I worked with is analog photography. I made a selection of few images from each day, the same way I selected the images for my drawings, and printed them manually in the darkroom, with the final addition of texts written in a diary style. I intentionally printed them manually, as a way to turn the reproduction of memory into an instance of crafting an object.

I wrote a short paragraph about my day at the end of each day. For my texts, I limited myself to a 10 x 10 cm paper and tried to be honest and clear about my impressions of the day.