About

مكان
makān pl. اماكن amākin
A place, station, dwelling, habitation (n. of place from the v. كان  kāna to be)

makanism: The Question of ‘Where’

The mortal body occupies a physical place while the soul, in contrast, transcends through infinite universes. That location is layered with memories that narrate a story about a soul’s “perpetual process of becoming” (shodan), Shari’ati’s elaboration on the more straightforward notion of the state of ‘being.’ I am on a mission to document the places which made those stories possible.

I don’t use location and space interchangeably. Heidegger draws a fine distinction between ‘location’ and ‘space.’ The former is a prerequisite “to remain at peace within the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature” while the latter “receive[s] their being from locations.” The physical location is where ‘becoming’ is materialized and is critical to understanding the development of an ideology that mobilized a revolution or the moment of self-realization which resulted in a new form of awareness.

Becoming is an active and ongoing process which intertwines people and locations across time and space. As Foucault puts it, “we are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed” where “space takes for us the form of relations among sites.” It is, therefore, the friction between heterotopia and utopia, reality and imagination, the self and the other, belief and disbelief, order and chaos, certainty and doubt that generates the meaningful relationship between places and the process of becoming.

It is the sense of place “one of the most basic human dimensions of human experience” (Basso) that tempted me to trace the spatial coordinates of our everyday movements and their impact on our interpersonal development. To further explore the question of ‘where,’ I created makānism to explore and document the spatial host of critical moments in our everyday lives. Shari'ati: The Preoccupied Flâneur in Paris is the first public project of makānism. Check back for an upcoming project in New York.

curator: Maryam Rabiee

My work focuses on strengthening data ecosystems to support sustainable development and the SDGs. My spare time is dedicated to makanism-related work. @maryamarabiee