SHADI YOUSEFIAN

Diaries series (2017)

In the Diaries series, as the title suggests, Shadi uses pages from her original diaries in which she had been keeping record of her everyday activities.  These diaries (written in calendar books) contained memories and stories spanning several years of Shadi’s life, starting two years before she left Iran in 1995.  Carefully going through each and every page, she cut out all of her hand written sentences with a blade, leaving only the surrounding blank space on each page, the dates on the calendar pages, as well as the important historic events printed in these pages.  She inserted each page in clear plastic sleeves with a mirror film behind it.  Each of the ten pieces in the series is color coded based on the color of the calendar that she has used.  Standing in front of these pieces and looking closely at the pages, one can get a glimpse of a faint reflection of oneself in the mirror films showing through the openings where Shadi’s hand written stories had once existed.  The mirror becomes a metaphor and tells each viewer their own unique story.  In a way, these diaries are no longer Shadi’s personal story; they change with each observer.