2021

I am the aggregate of all words spoken to me.
Ibn ʿArabi

The word “jowhar” has several meanings in the Persian language : ink, essence, gem, nucleus, origin.
The project consists of tear-catcher jars filled with ink instead of teardrops: ink as the recaptured essence of words. The essence -or the recycled ink- is captured from words, in order for it to convert into other words.
Each time a word is washed, it leaves a shadow of itself; and each time the ink is recaptured from a word, it pales in color. However, no sound nor any words disappear; they come to be other words.
Recapturing ink from words is a chance for rewriting. Washing words recaptures the ink from paper as. shedding tears purges the spirit and polishes the soul. In the old times they used to place tear-catchers in graves. Some say, the more teardrops the jars contained, the longer a mourning period it indicated; the lamentations continuing all the way until the evaporation of the last tear-drop.

The sentence repeatedly written on the 8 paper scrolls in this installation reads: “The future is merely a part of the past which has been forgotten.”
A word is born out of another word. No sound disappears or is obliterated. Music is related to words, and words are related to music.
The river and the waterfall are both quenched from the rain, but occur through different geographies.
This current will never stop to flow.
Future is merely a part of the past which has been forgotten.
-The sentence on the paper scrolls is taken from a note in my notebook written in 2013.
Mahsa Aleph 2021