Stills from Chapter 1, 2 & 3

Identity for a third culture kid, like myself, is bewildering. The impacts of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its hijacked efforts that turned the country into an oppressive Islamic Republic have been felt for generations, affecting every Iranian I know. Unpacking the impacts requires distance and consciousness, things that can be a luxury and privilege. In an effort to understand how I've gone through this world, I've found great momentary clarity in looking at identity through a magnifying glass, in whatever abstract way my intuition leads me in. So I listen to myself, and feel through my work. These stills are from a video series I created 5 years ago. They resonate today the same way they resonated then. And that's the beauty, right? We have found community through storytelling, collaborating, writing, image making... any kind of expression or creative pursuit that touches on the experience of being in the middle, forever. I have realized we are all part of this process and our feelings are shared, paramount, and there since the beginning. It was just a matter of time that we connected the dots in this vast and always evolving effort. This Chapter series, in collaboration with musical artist Rahill Jamalifard, is an exploration of music, sound, and moving images, spanning three chapters through a poem (chapter 1), a song (chapter 2), and a mix (chapter 3). Through each chapter we have been able to probe and gain more understanding of the symmetries of our relationship with family, culture and identity by way of our specific creative language. It allows us to see so much of ourselves and our experiences in each-other, as well as the Diaspora at large.