Growth Photograph

Invisible Transition Bahareh Akbarisafa’s project is spiritually and poetically inspired by her memories and stories, drawing parallels with the lifecycles of the leaves. She uses dead and dry leaves in this project to explore real and unseen beauty and the hidden importance of frequently overlooked things; a dead leaf decays, goes through the soil and gives life back to the tree. Two years ago she decided to be independent, fight for her dreams, find herself, love her failures and move forward in her life. This project acts as a trace of her achievements and perceived failures on the way to her dreams. The dead leaves represent her defeats and feelings of being lost between the real beauties which are so valuable for her, she feels she could not achieve her goals without these experiences. By using alternative photographic processes and using leaves as objects, she expresses this silent transformation of her life into a new independence in its unique and real way. Using the leaves as objects and the therapeutic, repetitive and patient method of cyanotypes, argyrotypes and photogram, she brings to life the parallels between her story and the cycles of nature. "Nature is like a mystery in my life, I can find everything in it. My inspiration, my director, my source of power, creativity, flying and understanding more about life and everything in my life. Using dead and dry leaf in this project is like using real and unseen beauty. All we like is a green leaf without thinking about the life cycle of a leaf. A dead lead decays, goes through the soil and gives the life to the tree. This project is like a trace between my failures and achievements on the way to my dreams. The dry and dead leaves that I used are like my failures, defeats and feeling lost which are so valuable for me, they are like hopes and I could not achieve my goals without them. By using alternative photographic processes, I am expressing this silent transformation of my life in my hometown into this new independent life in the England in its unique and real way by using the leaves as objects. I use nature as a way to translate my emotions through this process and the therapeutic repetition and patient method of cyanotypes, argyrotypes and photogram to bring this story to life."