Saskatoon: Anahita Akhavan

photo, intro: Jennifer Sparrowhawk

You know those really great late night conversations with new friends? Yeah, I love those.

I met Anahita at a friend’s birthday party where conversation soon turned to metaphysics and consciousness.

KC: What kinds of projects are you involved in right now?

AA: The project that I am currently working on it is based on notions of the psyche, consciousness and the awakening of the inner self. My process investigates a dialogue within my personal identity, which is deeply layered into my unconscious state of mind. I attempt to situate my own work by tapping into those spaces and memories that require further analysis and are ambiguous, vague and require profound exploration as I intuitively make manifest the images that I envision. Beside of this project I am starting a new bodies of work that are more connected to my everyday life, as I believe that dream and real world are not two separate worlds for me we are all living in a dream world. So by presenting my every day life (real life) I am trying to manifest my thoughts, emotions and reactions towards my environment.

KC: What’s your day job? What do you like about it? What’s challenging?

AA: I am starting my days with meditation in every morning then I am challenging myself to do yoga every day. The reason is I believe yoga and meditation are the most genuine mindful practices that will connect my body to my mind and soul. By doing this every day I make a chance for myself to observe my mind patterns and my true inner self. Other than that I am spending most of time being at my studio working on my projects. What is challenging for me is to make and create works that mostly true to myself and then make sense for my audience.

KC: What’s important to you?

AA: Transparency, creativity and freedom. There are many other words that I would say they are important for me. But I think these three are the first things that will come to my mind.

KC: What do you like most/least about Saskatoon?

AA: Well as a newcomer to Saskatoon I would say people in Saskatoon are very warm hearted and caring. They were encouraged me enough to be the person who I am now. I grew up as very secretive and introvert but then since I moved to here I felt this sense of community in people that motivated me to create and explore my self and most importantly my artistic practice.

KC: (from Proust questionnaire) What is your motto?

Every time that I am looking deeper in myself my vision becomes clearer. Who look outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. ( kind of inspired by Carl Jung)