Daria Rassoulian

Final Project: Passage

The square components of this piece each represent 500 steps and the overall all total of the steps is how many I have taken in my first months in Italy. This is following similarly to a previous project I had worked on, but this time I wanted the individual steps to have less meaning than the actual structure that I have created. In the end, Passage has come to represent my personal passage through Italy. My process was not one of planning, because our lives do not stick to a plan. This piece embodies my experiences living in another country for the first time and the battle between the ups and downs of life, which can be seen with the both smooth and abrupt changes within the artwork. My process was very much to let the work do what it wanted. I took it step by step with no plan on its patterning, width, or length. The way we live our lives is very much unscheduled and planned and I wanted to bring in that aspect of spontaneity into this work.

Mid-Term Project Statement:

“Steps” is based on my steps in Italy, primarily Siena. A way that I relate to my surroundings is by walking. Steps are a measurement of both distance and activity. Although they tell no specific story, they can tell trends and patterns important to the lifestyle of walker. Steps give small insights to the personality of a person. The decision to use squares to represent steps is a way to quantify a day’s steps while facilitating comparisons between the days . The large squares represent 500 steps while the smaller squares represent 250 steps. The cloth is used for both the rigidity of a schedule, but also flexibility of unscheduled events that end up differentiating each day. The choice of a cool tone palette is based on the comfort and meditation that walking brings to me. To me walking is not associated with the excitement and spontaneity of created by a warm palette.

Reading Response to “A New Type of Flaneur Strolls in Search of Humanity“

Zomorodinia’s inspiration for her work is very interesting. Some of her pieces were based on “questioning of how immigrants find a sense of home.” Although I have not immigrated to Italy, I feel that living here for multiple months I can feel a similar feeling of longing that many immigrants experience. Sometimes the littlest things can remind you of home, no matter how abstract. Zomorodinia creates mood and feelings from her work that effect the viewer. Although the meaning of her work is not very explicitly shown, it can be felt. I think that the best art makes us feel a certain way, with out it explicitly trying to sway the viewer in that direction.

Reading response: Unstable Territories:

In response to Unstable Territory I want to reflect upon the idea of territory itself. The word territory usually associated with people, although it can also be used to talk about other animals. In our world land is power. The idea of territory is that a border has been created to enclose a person or a group of people. Territory creates a community, but because of this creation we end up creating another group composed of others. Communities will end up next to each other and will fight each other for the other’s territory. Some wars have been started based on the borders drawn between two lands. Each community will say that they need that land for their own people to live well, but will end up creating hate that will later on effect them again. There will always be tension with the idea of territory because we see it as our own possession for example the phrase “our god given right,” the ideology of the Manifest Destiny and in the debate about amendment rights in America. Territory is both freeing and chaining.

Reading response: Rebecca Solnit: “The Blue of Distance” & “The Shape of a Walk”

Although blue is not my favorite color I end up finding myself very drawn to certain shades, making me more intrigued by the way Rebecca Solnit has interpreted the color blue. She goes on to describe that blue defines objects that are distant from us, for example mountains look blue if you are very far from them although they really are not. She says that his idea of distance also goes hand in hand with human longing and melancholy. Then she uses different types of art to back up her argument. I know that the color blue is perceived this way for most people and as a child I was taught the same. But now my relationship with the color is different. I feel desire when I see certain shades, I am drawn to color. I don’t feel “blue” as in sad, but blue to me is curiosity and adventure. If I were to talk about “the blue of distance” I would say that it is a happily driven force that doesn’t care about the endpoint, but the lessons that are learned from the act of the investigation.

Intro Unit Project: Luoghi di Fuga Booklet:

This art project is my try at journaling my surrounding in Siena. It filled with places I visit and pass by living in Siena, with my honest thoughts of the places. As I passed by the locations I jotted down notes and a sketch, so my thoughts are that of the moment. I wanted the book to feel very personal so I designed the book with he knowledge of the aesthetic of an actual journal that I would buy. There are small orange candy wrappers which acts a stamp that indicates a new location that I have visited.

Intro Unit Project: Tempo Zulu

My response to Tempo Zulu project was to For a path of my own to my favorite spot, but keep it anonymous. It starts from the Campo and ends at the fortress clearly marked by four tiles creating an area for one person to stand on. . The path is inspired by Boston’s Freedom Trial, but unlike it the markers (lapis tiles) are hidden on the street making the followers of the path only driven by their own curiosity. People don’t need to fully follow the path to the end, but create their own path by diverging and creating their own special path. There is no right way to walk the path you can follow it back to the Campo, follow it to the end or create your own adventure by diverging.

Intro Unit Project: Walk of Destiny

The project contains a sketch of my overall path that I took and a sketch of my end point. Taking a journey to a place with an unknown ending, makes the finishing area all the more important. I felt that in order for the viewer to understand my surroundings they needed to see the area through my own depiction of it.

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Daria Rassoulian, USA

Bio statement:

My name is Daria Rassoulian. I originally from Boston, Massachusetts. I am studying studio art at Mount Holyoke College and I have so far been exploring different mediums rather than having a singular focus on any one medium. Most of my work so far isn’t limited to one them, but inspirations that come in that moment. I am ready to learn to techniques and new ways of creating work while I am here.