Minoosh Zomorodinia
The Conduit Between Spaces
“I wanted to create an experience for people, so I wanted to document time and space in making these stop motions from the objects…and bring life to them.”
– Minoosh Zomorodinia
“I found…The Life of Objects, that there is life in each of them – what if they can tell a story, what if they can speak and talk to you.”
– Minoosh Zomorodinia
Written by Weston Teruya
Minoosh Zomorodinia uses sculpture, video, and the performances of daily life, like walking through the city, to explore how the dynamics of power play out in urban spaces and nature. For her exhibition at Recology, Zomorodinia will exhibit a series of sculptural assemblages and stop motion videos exploring discarded elements from our everyday surroundings, asking us to consider both the weight of our collective consumer excesses and the possibilities for new life in overlooked things.
In one part of Zomorodinia’s exhibition, stacked objects suggest a series of futuristic buildings or monuments overtaken and rebuilt from the trash that remains in a future city. Ductwork, pipes, and conduits are recurring materials in Zomorodinia’s sculptures. In using these objects, she highlights the hidden infrastructure of our everyday surroundings, placing them at the center of new, fantastical architectures. Making them visible strips away building facades to emphasize the labor and resources required to construct and maintain our cities.
While Zomorodinia challenges us to contend with the glut of trash that she faced and reflected upon while in residence, she also infuses the exhibition with an underlying sense of hope. She notes that a major inspiration for the project has been mythological tales that speak to renewal, like the story of Noah’s Ark. Within the installations, she includes stop motion animation videos revealing the assembly of the installations, parts converging and arranging themselves in sculptural forms, granting each object an anthropomorphic sense of play. In doing so, Zomorodinia transmutes these objects from overlooked discards to characters who deserve consideration and new use.
Zomorodinia earned her MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute and holds a Master’s degree in Graphic Design and BA in Photography from Azad University in Tehran. She has received several awards, residencies, and grants including the Kala Media Fellowship Award, Headlands Center for the Arts, and California Art Council grants. She has exhibited locally and internationally.
