"My whole life feels like a flow between birth and death, not just in the literal sense but in various periods. I've moved around a lot and often felt that my past life has ended, and a new one has begun. There have always been cycles of feeling great and feeling horrible. There's this tension between moving forward and being stuck in the past, nostalgic, and mixed with memories."
Sahra Jajarmikhayat, Artist
Client Feature
In June, DOG presented SHELTER 750 – a solo exhibition of work spanning design, objects, and sculpture. The show represented a visual essay drawing on an extended index of generative forms, digital aggregates, and algorithmic bodies modeled from volcanic data, frozen in time, then realized into material configurations by artist Sahra Jajarmikhayat over the course of two years.
Jajarmikhayat’s work is hard to define, a photographer by trade but an artist through experiment —unlike most artists, she comes from a rigorous background in research and physics. At 19 years old, amidst a tense political climate, she left Iran and immigrated to Italy where she started a career in photography, giving her a newfound way to record, index, and make meaning of the world.
Leading up to the show, Landscape Creative Director Ben Bloom sat down with Jajarmikhayat to talk about her life and her work, digging into the inspiration behind SHELTER 750 — an out-of-body experience at the Stromboli Volcano — and her unique process of experimentation through materiality and form.
SJ: I'm Sahra. I am a photographer and artist, designer? I don't know, I guess, a lot of things. But they all feel the same to me. Like I can never think of them separate from each other. I guess it all started with me being super into math and physics in high school in Iran. Born and raised in Iran, I got into studying physics hardcore for a year. And then, due to some political mess in Iran, I left and moved to Italy. That completely opened a whole new window of possibilities and ways of existence and being for me. For the first few years, I just studied random things because they were taught in English. Then, I ended up finding this program that was a very eclectic mix of cinema, music, art history, and theater. It was perfect, so I enrolled myself there. I didn't speak a word of Italian, so I just kind of went to school, learned the language, and got a little bit more accustomed to the new culture I was in. I was completely hooked. I felt like that part of my brain that was creative and the curiosity got activated, which in science is sometimes very suppressed. From there, I ended up following the leads of life.
When I moved here, I was craving going back into the practice of making things myself while doing photography more as my job. I ended up in this master's program at CCA. I had a blast and learned so much about different materials, processes, and ways of making. That program was very conceptual, so I was able to move very fluidly between concepts and ideas without being stuck in the technicality of how things are done. That really allowed me to find a real process and methodology that I can apply to every single thing I do. I finally found a zone where all these little bits of my brain can function together.
BB: Was it really the first time you did anything creative?
SJ: Technically, yes. But the funny thing is, in Italy, I didn't do anything creative. I didn't have my own practice back then. I was so young, just got out of school, and was trying to find a job. I ended up working with a photographer as an assistant. I was introduced and exposed to really beautiful Italian design, art, and fashion. All of that opened up to me. During school, it was just about learning Italian, passing my exams, and absorbing as much as I could about designers and artists. It was extremely overwhelming and beautiful at the same time. When I moved here, I found that moment of isolation, peace, and silence to really think about what I want to do and how I'm doing it. I was older and could think more deeply about my practice.
BB: You mentioned when you went to Italy, it was like a whole new way of living. I imagine the cultural transition from Iran was pretty intense. Is there anything from around that time that sticks out to you in your process and how you became the creative that you are?
SJ: Yes, I think I learned how to be a freer version of myself. I learned how to move and navigate around the world in a more poetic way. The Italian way of living is just that. I learned how to be free, how to observe, and not overthink everything in my head. I would say things I actually felt, and everyone around me resonated with that way of living. It was awesome to have that sort of freedom and portray it in day-to-day life. The photos I took during that period were so much more loose and sensitive. I felt like I was seeing things in the streets that I don't see here. But also, the big factor was my age. When I moved here, everything was way more serious, and I decided to become more serious. That Italian period really influenced me immensely, and I still see that affecting me every single day.
SJ: First of all, I'm so nervous. People are going to come and judge me. No, I'm kidding. But I'm really nervous to expose myself, my thoughts, and all the things I think so deeply about – and put it out into the world and see how people receive it. I'm also very excited for the opportunity. The concept came from these experiments I was doing in my thesis last year. From the get-go, I knew I wanted to work with the volcano, and I knew I wanted it to be Stromboli because it's one of the most active ones. I chose a site-specific volcano and thought about the origin of all forms and how they start with lines on paper, then turn into planes, and then into solids.
I thought about where the origin of all these forms comes from, and that was the volcano. That was the reason I picked Stromboli to start a new design language inspired by volcanic activity. It all started from me obsessing over this volcano and thinking about how I could get some information from what it does daily and transform that into materials and processes for making. It was about observing the volcano because, to me, a volcanic landscape is the most real one. It’s already deconstructed and abstract. It felt like a very good place to start. I went down the rabbit hole very fast. A few months in, I found myself literally just sitting on this app that was monitoring the volcano and taking screenshots every half a minute to see what the volcano was doing. All the screenshots you see are part of the body of work. I was sitting there, and as soon as the live cam would refresh, I'd take a screenshot. That made me feel like I was in a meditative, intimate zone with the volcano. The whole practice was a bit of a sacred way of having a relationship with natural entities and feeling connected.
BB: Just to make sure this is still recording...
SJ: It is.
BB: Awesome.
SJ: Super.
BB: So what made you pick this specific volcano?
SJ: That story is one of the best. A few months before moving to the US, I decided to take this 12-hour-long train from Milan to Naples. It was like a homage and a goodbye to the Italian landscape. From Naples, I was supposed to take a boat that would take another 10 hours to get to Stromboli. Stromboli is a very famous volcano, and everyone wants to see it. I decided to make that trip. When I got to Naples, the boat couldn't leave that night due to the weather, so we all slept on the boat. We had a whole day in Naples to walk around and enjoy. When I arrived at Stromboli, I immediately felt this energy. I had been on a few volcanoes before, but this one captivated me. That whole two days felt out of this world. It was probably because I was already so nostalgic about leaving Italy.
We did this four-hour hike, spiraling around the cone to the top. When we got there, we had to wear masks and protective gear. They gave us a second to step at the edge and look down into the volcano. Seeing magma and the movement of the earth was forever touching. After that, we slid down the mountain into the water. It was a full moon. All of this made it eternally special. I kept going back and thinking about it.
SJ: Yes, this was 2016.
BB: And you revisited this years later. What brought that up?
SJ: I think I was missing the version of myself from that time. I was missing that freedom of movement and thought, being in the world without any worries. Also, when I thought about doing the project about volcanoes, Stromboli stayed so strongly in my head. When I moved to the US, I kept thinking about other volcanoes, but Stromboli just stayed with me. I found a volcanologist who works at the monitoring lab there, and that gave me a reason to work with Stromboli. I could use all the data from the app. It was a good practical reason to choose it.
BB: So they worked with you on a lot of this stuff?
SJ: No, I just had access to the app. It’s free and anyone can download it. I had a brief talk with Maurizio, the researcher, and mentioned I wanted to do this project. He was very excited and supportive, and said to use all the data. I was a little overwhelmed about what data to use, so I got very conceptual and poetic about creating each project. I didn’t want this to be just data visualization. To me, this was about creating an intimate relationship with the volcano and creating objects directly touched by it. It wasn’t about data; it was about evidence of an active volcano.
BB: Your work is such a unique blend of art and research. Besides the obvious, what draws you to this?
SJ: It’s probably my background in science. I like constraints, systems, and methods. I like being methodical about things. I don't enjoy work that is just about myself or my skills. This lets me be hands-off and let the system create the work. It’s not just me and my skills, but the idea and the world influencing the work. It’s a very different approach to creation. It also gives me a sense of collaboration with other scientists and researchers. I always want to work with other people. This specific project made me think about how I can design a system that generates work.
I’m also drawn to this because I’m curious about how things function in nature. I want to create a world that has some significance, that tells a story. It’s more fulfilling for me than just making something because I can. I want to create something that has a process and a narrative. This way, I can have a methodology and a practice that is consistent and meaningful.
BB: You work with many mediums. What are some of the challenges and rewards of working with so many different mediums?
SJ: The challenge is the endless possibilities. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on one thing when you’re curious about so many things. The reward is being able to think bigger and not feel constrained by my own skills. I don’t have to be a master at one thing. I can learn new skills, collaborate with fabricators, and keep my practice fresh and evolving. The other reward is the material itself. I chose materials that I had no experience with, which forced me to think and see differently. I got to work with glass, metals, and other materials that exist in volcanic landscapes. Working with glass especially was something that got my full attention. It’s a material that is so connected to the concept of the project.
SJ: Yes, the first piece is an hourglass. The idea came from a form I generated from the data. I thought it was beautiful and poetic, so I decided to turn it into an object. I collaborated with a glass artist to create it. It took us two months to create it, and it has all these cracks and imperfections because of the internal pressure. It’s meant to represent a short volcanic eruption, capturing that moment of explosion and activity.
Then I decided to make vases out of the form. I thought of it as a deconstructed vase for long-stemmed flowers. The different colors of glass were chosen because the material didn’t offer an opaque black. I went with a dark green, which has this volcanic feel. The cracks and imperfections in the glass represent the idea of a living entity, something that is active and evolving.
BB: I'd love to hear more about the theme of life, birth, and death that you mentioned. I can see it in the context of a volcano, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
SJ: My whole life feels like a flow between birth and death, not just in the literal sense but in various periods. I've moved around a lot and often felt that my past life has ended, and a new one has begun. There have always been cycles of feeling great and feeling horrible. There's this tension between moving forward and being stuck in the past, nostalgic, and mixed with memories.
Volcanic activity constantly creates and destroys land, a continuous flow of destruction and construction. I think it's a beautiful, poetic reminder that when things die, new things are born. For example, volcanic soil is some of the most fertile soil, and you can see it being covered in black, but then stems of plants emerge from it. This cycle of life is so beautiful and helps me stay grounded. If things are horrible, they'll get better, and if they're great, hard times may come, but it's all part of that loop.