The Closest I Could Get to the Sun
Video and sound installation
At Royal NonSuch Gallery, Oakland, CA, 2018
Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2017
The Closest I Could Get to the Sun creates an immersive environment in which viewers watch and listen to a Skype video conversation between the artist, Shaghayegh Cyrous, in San Francisco, and her mother in Tehran, Iran. Her mother walks around her garden, describing it for Cyrous, who can not return home due to travel restrictions in the United States and political threats in Iran. Oscillating between a hopeful potential for meaningful connection and a frustrating lack of closeness, The Closest I Could Get to the Sun explores our ongoing attempts to substitute digital proximity for physical presence.
The spectator would have to wear a cover shoe that was provided before entering the space. The spectator would experience a space covered with a white color that represents between dream world. While you sat on the swing, you could grab a headphone and listen to the artist's narration of the situation before she gets into the airplane (where the title came from), to the United States as you stay watching her conversation through a video chat with her mother and the garden, the shadow on the swing changes slowly from right to left and fade and appear from the right again. Simultaneously you can hear a smell of a Hyacinth flower that her mother also shows in the video while the spectator experiences the whole piece.
The Closest I Could Get to the Sun
Video and sound installation
At MFA Thesis Exhibition, Wattist art institute, San Francisco 2017
