Last and Lost

As the title implies, Last and Lost (2020) responds to the phenomenon of annihilation over deep time. The work is a reference to an episode in history during which the biosphere underwent calamitous changes, bringing about the loss of life on a mass scale. According to Kerman’s prehistoric record, the extinction event did not eventuate with more adaptable successors to the perished species, rather, the entire loss of water resulted in an apocalyptic upheaval, ushering in a new and bleak history for the region.

The forms depicted in this artwork are symbolic of the diverse species that once inhabited the Kerman region before widespread annihilation. I refer to them as ‘Last’ or ‘ultimate’ to reflect the dead-end evolution in the region’s biosphere that resulted in the entire loss of marine life, and a cataclysmic reduction in eco-diversity (though I am not suggesting that the region is devoid of life of any sort). Clearly, the shift in climate and environment took place over deep time, nevertheless the ramifications have turned out to be irreversible and perpetual. In this work, I imagine how the last lives in the region may have looked and moved, prior to the silence and desolation that now pervades Kerman; since nearly all of the marine species were the last of their type in terms of an evolutionary continuum, I have created compound creatures consisting of hybrid attributes. I employed embroidery for the body of creatures, a reference to Kerman’s textile legacy and the medium through which the local population attributed value to nature.

The work Last and Lost grew from an appreciation of life and eco-diversity; it is a tribute to the spectrum of creatures that formerly dominated Kerman and made it their habitat. Floating in a non-fluid environment, the creature’s incongruous surrounds show their separation from the reality of the world and connects them to a pictorial imagery. Reflecting the atmospheric transition in Kerman over deep time, the background is depicted as closer to the texture of rocks than flowing liquid, alluding to the process of environmental demise and fossilization.