Echoes of the Past is a multimedia installation by Sepideh Jahanpanah, containing numerous ceramic pieces developed through a participatory process. It unfolds people’s past and current experience of being Iranian, depicting an eroding Iran through the eyes of the Iranian diaspora.
After eight years living away from home, the artist Sepideh Jahanpanah is sorrowfully looking at an emptiness, oldness, abandoned-ness, and vulnerability from a distance. With Echoes of the Past, she is reflecting on the unappreciated and neglected rich Persian culture, art, literature, architecture and philosophy, it’s diverse nature, and unique cuisine. Over the course of two years, Echoes of The Past evolved from a personal visualization of the life experiences of the Iranian diaspora in The Netherlands, to a collective perspective on a civilization and cultural heritage of several millennia, which is gradually fading away from the rest of the world.
The work has been realized through collaboration with multiple Iranians currently living outside of Iran. Participants worked during multiple sessions in small groups on ceramic pieces that have become part of the installation. Social-political conversations and stories about personal experiences as migrants were recorded during these sessions, and is used in the generative, ever eroding soundscapes played through the structure of the landscape.
