I am Shiva Alipour and a graduate student at Pratt Institute working on my Masters in Communication Design. For my thesis I wanted to explore issues about identity and dual-culturalism. These are ideas that I have been thinking about for many years. I was born in Iran and moved to the United States when I was four years old. Even though I moved when I was very young and was able to assimilated to the new culture quickly and thoroughly, I also had feelings that I was from somewhere else, my past was different then the little American girl next to me. The feeling of duality and balance is a unique situation that most first-generation children experience.
For many first-generation Americans identity is a complex subject. The experience of living and trying to reconcile two unique cultures is an experience that more and more children are facing as immigration numbers continue to grow. As of 2008, there were 16 million first-generation Americans under the age of 17. This is a large group and for my project it was necessary to narrow down the focus to a subculture of that population. I wanted to focus on the Iranian-American subculture because of my own personal attachment and familiarity with it. But also because they are group that the typical American knows little about. I feel they would be an ideal group to shine a light on and show that they are as much a part of the American fabric as any.
So, for my actual thesis project, Dualism (http://dualism-thesis.tumblr.com/), I wanted to explore the Iranian-American identity through the use of object portraiture. The idea is to better understand the Iranian-American demographic through the objects that we keep around and associate as part of our identity. Participants gather objects that they keep around them, the objects should collectively show whatever they feel is or is part of their Iranian-American identity. Once they have gathered these items, they take a photo and submit through the website, http://dualism-thesis.tumblr.com/.
By using objects we move away from race and traditional visual cues about someone’s ethnic identity. By composing their own vignette the participant is able to create their own identity and their own cultural artifacts. We see the importance of objects in the formation and mirroring identity. I hope to able to distill what is important to this group. I want to see what American qualities have become ingrained and what Iranian qualities have endured and been passed down. By giving each individual a voice we start to see what objects, symbols, ideas, and themes are important to this group.
Thank You,
Shiva Alipour
http://dualism-thesis.tumblr.com/
Pratt Institute ’11 -M.S. Communication Design
