For the weekend, we decided to go to my grandpa’s garden which is about 2.5 hours away from my home in Tehran. I really needed a break from my screen and digital life so I decided to do my action there. My grandpa’s garden (aka Kalfoor) has many apple trees, berries, and plums, all of which he had planted 40-50 years ago. This is the heaven he made for himself (and for us) before he went to the real heaven about 2 years ago.
I was surrounded by leaves. They literally fell on my head and clothes as I was sitting here. I could hear the sound of the wind and leaves clashing on each other. I decided to make something with them.
There were many branches on the ground as well. I decided to tie the leaves to them. I didn’t have any tools with me and I just used whatever I found on the ground.
While I was looking at my collection, I saw them as a little army. Maybe because they reminded me of pointy spears and ancient weapons. Did I make an army for nature or with nature?
photo from an Italian private collection for sale (!!)
I decided to place them on the ground and make some kind of a fence. Maybe set my army ready to guard their ground? or scare away the enemies?
This soldier reminded me of a scarecrow. But this time, we want to scare away humans.
A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.
Lesley Brown (ed.). (2007). “Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles”. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923324-3.
Nature has its own language. The flora and fauna share this common language and have communicated through it since the beginning of time. It was humans who at some point, pretended that they don’t understand the language, and started exploiting all the natural resources. If nature could build an army, an army that humans recognize, could they fight humans back and save their lands from being colonized? Can I be the bridge and translate nature’s language to humans?
Can I transmit their angst and sorrow?
I was pretty lost at first and was struggling to verbalize my thoughts for this action. Special thanks to Kimia, who motivated me to go through it without overthinking! x