2014
35 x 300cm
Neon
Curated by the esteemed David Elliott, in the 2014 edition of the Moscow Biennale for Young Art, in the Moscow Museum drawing inspiration from the iconic words of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the popular phrase “Dream a Little Dream” encapsulates an overt imagining for something improved, yet at the same time the grand global vision of peace and equality seems continuously beyond our immediate reach. As an Iranian-American contemporary artist, in choosing to translate the phrase “Dream a Little Dream” into replica omega Farsi, its implications are clear: that the world continues to evade the rather simple conception of peace.
The historical implications of “I Have a Dream” is deeply imbedded in not only American consciousness, but the world psyche, sharing popular culture involving “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” famously sung by the iconic Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, pioneers of the African American struggle for equality in the mid-20th century in the United States. One can even trace the historical associations of King's quote, with his dream partially achieved yet his life cut short in 1968, in the very same year "Dream a Little Dream of Me" was released as a top billboard hit by Mama Cass Elliott (of The Mamas and The Papas). Yet the decay of noble aspirations is most evident in how "Dream a Little Dream" reassigned itself in the late 1980’s as the title of a vapid Hollywood production starring the epitome of excess and insipid troubled teen actors Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. These words, harboring on the surreal, continue to travel and resonate through the sands of time.
The simple quote broken down into its elemental verbal form translated in poetic Farsi verse demands to question if one is capable to “Dream a little Dream”.
