The Burning of Autumn

During the days when the Hyrcanian forests, one of Iran’s oldest ecosystems, were engulfed by wildfires and efforts to contain the flames were ongoing, this body of work took shape. For me, this simultaneity was not merely an external coincidence, but a point of confrontation with the fragility of nature and the role of humans in its preservation or destruction. In this project, the matchbox is used as a small yet metaphorical object; an item that is not inherently guilty, but one that can become a tool for catastrophe. Inside the base of the matchboxes, images of the Hyrcanian forests are placed using the cyanotype technique, printed at a very small scale. These landscapes, vast and seemingly endless in reality, are here confined, vulnerable, and enclosed within a limited space. The choice of small dimensions and the use of cyanotype, as a manual, time-consuming process dependent on natural light, directly resonates with the concept of nature’s fragility and instability. In The Burning of Autumn, the matchbox simultaneously carries the image of nature and the sign of its threat; a contradiction that points to the complex and often destructive relationship between humans and their environment.