Creative Disturbance

This podcast is a conversation with contemporary Iranian sculptor Aban Salehi regarding her award-winning sculpture “Zarvan” in the Versus Sculpture Festival 2015 in Tehran. By referring to the ancient Persian myth of Zarvan, god of time in ancient Persian deities,  Aban Salehi intends to criticize the long-held foundations of viewing the world through good and evil forces as a dominant narrative of Iranian culture which leaves no room for shades of grey.  In Persian mythological texts,  Zarvan is a divine being who engendered equal-but-opposite twins, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu which are characterized as the symbols of good and evil in the universe. Based on ancient mythology, these two non-reconciliatory forces of good and evil are the driving forces of the universe eternally engaged in an endless battle. The divinity Zarvan is also recognized  as the god of eternal time and space who is a transcendental being emancipated from temporal passionate desires in Persian Mythic narratives. Aban Salehi’s black a