pr: the crystal odyssey

“THE CRYSTAL ODYSSEY” (work in progress)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA PORTS

7 pilgrims board a vessel, voyaging from Barcelona travelling east, stopping in 7 port cities around the Mediterranean.

Deeply inspired by Farid ud-din Attar, Jacques Derrida, Lewis Caroll, Jalal ad-din Muhammad Rumi, Michel Foucault, and several trips of wandering in the desert, the tale proposes a modern day interpretation of the pilgrimage, where two trajectories unfold: the inward and the outward.

There is the plight of the inner mystical journey, what can most be articulated by the Sufi notion of longing and separation, remembrance, quenching thirst of oneness; and the outward voyage of travel, inputs, different landscapes, symbols, discourses.

Who is the wanderer? The Sufi? Or maybe perhaps it is Alice?

The poem and subsequent project explores "the deconstruction of the sublime" by retracing these two trajectories: the inward and the outward. Written in English, and translated into Farsi, then recited by voice over artist, Neda Zahraie, the poem and video (open call for the project) is an invitation to enter, partake, and observe the tale as it unfolds.

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