This year-long project was conceptualized and developed during my final undergraduate year at OCAD University. time | process | myth exhibited at GradEx 101 — Toronto's largest free five-day art, design and digital media exhibition.

I spent the year researching works of different psychologists, philosophers, and neurologists — some including Elizabeth Leftus, John Locke, David Home, Endel Tulving, and Oliver Sacs. Throughout my research, I learned that remembering the past is a tool used to help us gain a sense of continuous existence in time, and it allows us to anticipate a future. Every individual's identity becomes strongly intertwined with their personal stories, and episodic memories are the source of our personal history and events. Memories deteriorate over time — every time we remember an experience, it becomes a less accurate representation of that event. When remembering an event, our brain gives us distorted recollections that form complete narratives through utilizing our imagination.

My research on this topic bridged with my personal history as an Iranian immigrant became the foundation, inspiration, metaphor, and content used in all of my visual explorations. My thesis grew to investigate the concept of episodic memory through a series of visual exploration. I used photographs and time-based media as a metaphor for the destructive and constructive processes that constitute our perceptions of the past. We remember who we are through our memories, but we also remember to imagine a future in which we exist. Below you can view these visual explorations and process books that documented my research and experimentations throughout the year.