About me. I'm Ayaan. I am from Iran and I came here to study actual art. Basically, I studied architecture. I was an architect in Iran, and then I somehow changed the field some way here to study art. What I do, it's a hard question for me, really hard question, It's a hard question for me, really hard question, because I am catched by for sure one thing, one pin, a keyword or whatever I can use here always is I am being always critical with my works and but the how I do it the approach and most of the time I do some research about the topic I try to understand it better and to yeah to to have some layers and then see what fits if it's a film if it's a film, if it's a performance, or yeah, it is not somehow I'm driven by the ideas. And therefore, many of my things are not mastered in technique, I should say. I am very much DIY with everything I do and therefore if you get a picture from my back, I have so many tools and materials and you see not relevant. or not so much in the same way or this because I just, from this idea to other idea, I needed different collected materials or this around it. And they come, I think my own, all work when you put them together, they become also an abstract collage. I don't know. I never fit. them together they become also an abstract collage. I don't know. I never fit. I should say even as an artist I don't fit. But for sure also as an architecture and I don't know. I really, it's not that I chose it or something. It is these ideas that keep you hanging there. And then you just, I didn't come to art or this. I just came, I tried to find ways to do them. And I don't know even if I call it art. And still I don't know how to be an artist or how to be, how easy it even that. But I just do things. And this so far as I know. Yeah. And I think I get so inspired by other artists, good artists. so inspired by other artists, good artists, and this is what they're revealing the truth, revealing the under surface and connectings. This is something driven me always to also path as an artist. My financial strategies. For the first two years I worked as a cleaning lady and this is, I couldn't find any job in architecture here because I couldn't talk in language. And two years I worked cleaning lady and then one of the places I, in this website somehow, one person saw that I am also willing to work handwork thing and this was my entrance to the construction field. And a long time I worked in the construction field, handwork. I built, it's a private house, and I built things there. I built, like years I did it. No, I got successful to raise some public funds. But even for my last project, I got very good funding. very good funding but I've worked for six months on it all I got I could pay myself was thousand euros so it is far away to even call it a support it's at the in the best case it's a support that you realize a project but a support for living you cannot really call it yeah i got i have a teaching contract now with the university which is very good and also one year i was an assistant again in the university, but yeah, mainly I'm unemployed. But since I got my passport, I could also get benefit of unemployment support from the city. support from the city and every week I apply for five jobs as a cleaning lady again this is I'm obliged to it's also somehow funny some of them call me and laugh with me, why you want to work for us? With your service, you know, don't know, ask OMS. It doesn't make sense. No logic tells you to go to such a painful life and struggle with non-approval, no money, so many stress, and it's so self-doubting, and actually the world doesn't need any artists, they don't need you, and you should prove your career even. So anyhow, it is painful, I am not convinced all the time, but sometimes it's then so, I always go to the job, job website to see what else I could do, I could go to this, I could maybe, I don't know, maybe it doesn't make sense, but then an idea comes and my life is the lighting again and I love it I just I draw myself to that and till the moment comes that the the project is finished and again to back to normal and you again ask yourself, okay, why even you did that? So, okay, again, I don't know, it's maybe the painful path for everyone. I don't know. I'm always in the way of the artists who are confident to have this thought. And I try to find them and, you know, maybe... As an immigrant artist, you are not... It is a long distance between two ways of producing art, thinking as an artist and the way you do it. In Austria, I came to this understanding that, for example, satire is so much there for their way of putting the artwork or critical things there, out there. For us, it was a much more seriousness of thing was in the surface as well. Anyhow, my work is none of them. Too serious for here, not that serious or tragic for there. serious for here, not that serious or tragic for there. Or... This is something that was, again, made me lose myself again, again, to not find a place. Okay, where should I be even? And I didn't like to be in the drawer of the diaspora artist because as a diaspora artist, you have to, it seems like I should talk about women and their problems in Iran about moon loss. I don't like to do that. I like to do it when I am in Iran. I critical, I critic what is there and not to bring that critic here. I don't do this. And therefore I don't fit again. And this sometimes inventing the real again somehow especially we are living in a small town sometimes you feel should I go to something that is already there and try to just at least do this what is there and get the benefit of the past generations not again put the chador there and be naked and under it i don't know therefore this something is in my you know this life financial thing thing is there but just in about art itself what discouraged me is somehow, again, to not just do things, you should again convince people it is also a way of the world. You know, it is, yeah. Doubts. We doubt ourselves a lot. Look at whatever I said right now also I think and maybe they still take more seriously male artists. I think still female artists, it is not that they chose a career, it's more about hobby it's like female have so much time and therefore they also they can do art with it but if a man does that because men are busy it's somehow still the top level of this business lead by men. And they take themselves seriously, I should say. And this is their pyramid. And I think, yeah, if I just from my self perspective, I see how easier male artists just deal with their own doubts and how much they appreciate their messy thoughts. They appreciate themselves so much. If I get messy in my head, I force myself, what's wrong with you? Just do it or always self-doubting and self-criticizing. But male artists put this out there more confident and let others deal with it. deal with it. It is, therefore, they can also enter to their business, enter to this loop much sooner. We stay out to be there, to reach there, then to show something and make us always also late to enter to that loop. And of course this doesn't help. People should know your name and your face and this is how it goes. One important thing is I put much effort, I think you did as well, to understand the norms, to understand the system. It's not easy. It's very hidden. They always say, go find it. It's on the website. But it's far from the truth. Of course, the keywords are there, but it is not how it works. And somehow I was like to understand how it works. It is important. And one thing, I'm determined to pass this knowledge to as much as I can in the university, to the artists, to immigrants, to anyone to come to me. Just give them knowledge, to give them information, where to do, to give them the picture, how it works, to not like me, waste so much time to again put it to yourself or why I didn't get there because, come on, there are so many other hidden things. I didn't know it. I didn't get there because come on there are so many other hidden things I didn't know it one thing I for sure there is a lot of room to for to for in for improvement I don't know if I am if I can improve anything but um how to say it's like um you, I'm there too. The space is yours, but I'm there too. And we will see. There are so many people don't make it. I could be also one of them. I think I live with the worst scenario and this makes me calm. It's like not be oriented to succeed. This is something is just okay. Having studio or not is a huge thing. It has a huge effect of your productivity. A studio is where your thoughts come together, you're all yourselves, and come together and talk to each other. and come together and talk to each other. And even if it is not... It's a place that you dedicated, which is again for a job no one wants. It's very important to have it to help you to produce. I never had money, so I never could afford a notary before. And in art university we didn't have space just easily no one had a table there when I went there so it was a it was not a I never had it still one of the artists and activists in Leeds started to find empty spaces in Leeds and give it, offer it to artists with a cheap, very cheap rent. I got lucky to get one room and it was my first atelier in Ledingenheim and I felt suddenly the change there. Wow, what a difference. It was exactly in Corona time, still didn't work as a networking place or something that could really also be, you come to the loop again with your atelier as a professional artist. But then after it was just for one year and I couldn't afford again another space. So anyhow, I found a very cheap rental apartment, which I could have it, but it's big. I could have it if I renovate I worked in construction field for a long time so I was confident I had a help for my boyfriend I can renovate and then set up my artilier. So yes, it is two years now my atelier is resting here and hopefully this year this space will be ready to set it up again. There are a lot of empty spaces around and an artist doesn't need a clean place to work. But for example what they did with the tobacco fabric. Look, one table you get for 300 euros and with this like architectural, self-presenting intellectual way of space design it didn't serve any artist just the architect himself and it cost a lot that they should take it for, it's just lost, they lost the aim in middle of the project. So anyhow, I know many artists went there and actually they cannot even make it their thing. So it doesn't work even if, and very expensive. So yes, it is very, it is a privilege to have many artists just have one corner of their home, they call it atelier. Which is, yeah, then your bed is also part of your atelier, your kitchen becomes when you clean your brushes and yeah, this is it. But even that is, because not all of them live alone. So with kids, with family, this even gets impossible to afford. I am alone, I live alone. I don't have kids. And this is also another decision I made for this career. I couldn't afford otherwise.