IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE

© Ali Tahayori - IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE 1, 2022, body fluid and paint on digitally printed photograph, 310 x 223mm. © Ali Tahayori - IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE 6, 2022, body fluid and paint on digitally printed photograph, 310 x 223mm. © Ali Tahayori - IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE 3, 2022, body fluid and paint on digitally printed photograph, 310 x 223mm. View all images ↓
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IMPOSSIBLE DESIRE is a series of hand-painted photographs captured from inside a public toilet, a gay beat, in my hometown, Shiraz, where I had my first intimate experience. Given it is not safe for me to visit my country for being openly gay, I asked a friend who still lives in Iran to visit the site and take some images for me. Looking at his photographs, I realized images did not correlate with my memories of the site. Initially, the project was meant to revisit and reconstruct a past queer memory. Still, later, it became about the experience of a place and a time that is no longer accessible. Referencing abstract expressionism, I used body fluid and paint to express my feelings of loss and longing for a past that was incomplete and disrupted and a future that never followed. Using my body fluid mixed with paint queers the image, reimagining a future where homosexuality is no longer prohibited.