By Fatemeh (Blue) Abdollahzadeh

Tasting One’s Way to A New Identity

‘Personal identity is the outcome of a continuous retelling of the past; an intrasubjective narrative that has made us believe that we have remained“one person”when, in fact, we are an infinite number of diverse selves.’ This definition by Paul Ricoeur in Oneself as Another finds a tangible reflection in Tasting Memory, a photography series by Hooria Sanei. The artist used culinary metaphors to reexamine identity, memory, and personal experience in this collection. This sequencing not only captures a record of her past and present in the photographic narrative but stands as an aesthetic and philosophical journey into otherworldliness, pulling the audience along on a sensory voyage through photography. Sanei uses basic semiotic principles to organize this collection, particularly at the icon and symbol levels.

Identity in Migration and Its Impact on Artistic Creativity

In the works of artists like Hooria Sanei, who have migrated from their homeland, themes such as identity, displacement, and cultural interaction take center stage. Migration not only transcends physical borders but also brings forth identity challenges and encounters with "the Other." In this context, Sanei’s multicultural experiences have led her to approach art beyond a local perspective; she seeks common ground between technology, culture, and human behavior, as if situated between two worlds, attempting to blur the boundaries between self and other through the fusion of various media. Migration, in this sense, is not merely a geographical shift but a transition from a "fixed identity" to a dynamic and multifaceted one, a transformation that is deeply reflected in her work.

Experience, Identity, and Memory: Reconstructing the Self

One of the central themes of this series is the connection between memory and identity. Sanei precisely captures this paradox—most notably in her photograph Tasting the Age, where she presents her face at different points in time. While her facial features remain unchanged, her existential essence is constantly redefined. This idea echoes Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence, where identity is not a static entity but an ongoing process of transformation.

Language, Limitation, and Possibility: Questioning Self-Expression

One crucial layer of this collection — one elaborated most vividly in Tasting the Silence — is the issue of language and self-expression. The artist is referring to a Persian idiom, “I swallow my words,” which describes a struggle with language. From a Derridean deconstructionist perspective, it is not a stable image that reproduces our meanings, but rather a deconstructive nihilism that disrupts the use of language as definitive for meaning and discloses the flaws and fractures at the name/meaning interface.

Through visual symbols and signs, Sanei reconstructs the self. In Tasting Expression, she places a painting of herself on a plate, searching for a way to escape the constraints of language and establish an alternative system of communication

Memory and Absence: Identity Through Loss

"Absence shapes our perception of the world just as much as presence does."

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception is strikingly evident in Tasting the Empty, one of the most powerful images in this series. The photograph features a family picture with its figures removed, leaving behind only empty spaces. This "absence" is more than just negative space; it becomes a presence in itself, much like the way surrealist photographers such as Claude Cahun represented shifting identities. This image profoundly illustrates how loss can, in itself, become an integral part of identity.

A Sensory and Philosophical Journey

Tasting Memory series, is not only a conceptual photographic work, but also as a sensory, philosophical, semiotic exploration into the depths of human experience. Using visual storytelling, culinary allegories and representations of absence, Hooria Sanei delves into an identity that is register upon register, still growing. This series is not only a personal exploration of memory and the boundaries of selfhood but also a global meditation on meaning, remembrance, and expression. Sanei challenges the limitations of spoken language through the language of imagery, offering a tangible depiction of identity as a fluid and ever-changing process—one shaped through experience, erasure, and reconstruction. This collection invites the viewer not just to see but to feel, question, and perhaps even discover fragments of their own identity within it.

To explore the full series by Hooria Sanei, visit the link below:

https://openeyestories.org.uk/portfolio_page/a-menu-of-memories-by-hooria-sanei