Safoura Zahedi

Journey Through Geometry

‘Journey Through Geometry’ is an ongoing installation series that explores geometry as a spiritual design tool. Designed as a modular kit-of-parts, this fractal structure transforms to reveal new spatial experiences at each new site.

Exhibitions:

2024 July, Art Nest @ Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Nathan Phillips Square

2024 June, AZ Awards by AZURE Magazine, Evergreen Brickworks

2024 Feb-April, GLISTEN Festival, Yonge + St.Clair W BIA

2024 Jan, DesignTO Festival, STACKT Market

2024 Jan, Interior Design Show, Metro Toronto Convention Centre

GEOMETRY STORY

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GEOMETRY STORY >>

FABRICATION STORY

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FABRICATION STORY \\

Journey Through Geometry, iteration I, as seen at the 2024 Interior Design Show (IDS) + DesignTO Festival + GLISTEN Festival.

 

This fractalized installation explores geometry as a spiritual design tool, inviting people into a spatial experience that encourages introspection, meditation, and connection.

In 2022, I launched a 365-day field-research project, which took me to 17 countries and over 40 cities to study geometric patterns in art and architecture across major historic Islamic dynasties. Islamic design often uses repeating geometric patterns that invoke natural forms to echo the multiplicity within universal oneness. Bringing together my cultural heritage and contemporary design training, “Journey Through Geometry” intersects my fascination with both time-honoured craft and digital technologies to reflect on the relationship between spirituality and materiality in a 21st-century context.

 
 

The sculpture’s geometry is based on a six-fold pattern, which is derived from a circle divided into six parts — one of the most common patterns found in Islamic architecture and handcrafts. After first tessellating two-dimensional equilateral triangles and translating them into a three-dimensional tetrahedron, I then truncated, folded, and fractalized the geometry to create modular units. The result is a repeating pattern in which each individual modular unit is the same as the whole, and the whole a reflection of each modular unit. This interplay between unity and multiplicity speaks to the spiritual ethos of Islamic design practices.

Inspired by fractal forms in nature, the digitally fabricated sculpture comprises a series of modular steel units polished to a reflective mirror finish. The pyramidal structure is both open and solid, drawing people inward while simultaneously producing reflections that refract, multiply, and reconstitute perspectives and inspire us to broaden our minds and souls.

 

This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of:

Millworks Custom Manufacturing, MCM (Fabrication Sponsor) ; Timothy Boll (Technical Fabrication Consulting) ; Make Good (Story Capturing) ; INPS Graphic Solutions (Print Sponsor) ; 3M Canada (Material Sponsor) ; Ontario Arts Council, OAC

Photos by: Kurtis Chen, Safoura Zahedi