I was working on the idea of this collage and generally making a series of collages for about a year prior to starting this project. The third collage aimed to tell the story of a quarter-century of Iranian history in sound. I collected a big archive of sound clips and started shortlisting them and omitting many famous ones from the final cut. I then arranged them in chronological order, but slowly started moving some of them around to create the desired storyline.
Given that I don’t spend any time of effort promoting my work and rather spend my energy on the next work, the success of this work surprised me a bit; although being so heavy on nostalgia and editing, maybe it shouldn’t have. The work was circulated quickly on social media and uploaded by others on different platforms. I had old friends who’ve lost contact get in touch saying they came across this and shared their kind comments. One of my relatives said it was like a near-death-experience where everything flashes between your eyes.
One thing in particular was very interesting for me and that was the fact that many listeners’ first reaction was to immediately suggest another clip or even ask “Why this or that clip wasn’t there?”, as if the work is an official history of Iran in the past quarter of century in sound, which has always been my intention.