Yalda Eskandari

When the Curtain Falls - 2022

The essence of difference elimination and categorization is based on similarities. Isolation is a defense mechanism to control the unknown. Anyone could have experienced it one way or another. Isolation can include a specific place, location or even gender. Similar to what happens to a suspected plant infection in a greenhouse which can be a sort of isolation. To prevent the spread of the virus, to control something different that can change the similarities. I shed light to the isolated part of the greenhouse to see what’s inside clearly. A curtain separating the plants creates an image once the light is shed. An image of plants shadows tangled with something unknown, unshaped as it’s shaping, as it’s growing like a semen, growing without identity, genderless and thoughtless. This greenhouse is a recreation that has happened in my studio. The image of virus is made from the slide film images that I have created through manipulating, collage and mixing different slide films. All the slides are images including part of the womb, semen, placenta, fetus and finally the woman. There is something growing within this room, within this house. Something that has been spread and is making an effort to spread even more, beyond the curtain.