How Dust Floats (c. 2015) attempts to map out the boundaries of spiritual and emotional territories. Noor collected fragments of visuals and stories from his sojourn that traces the union of the Sufi mystic, Rumi and his spiritual companion, Shams from Iran to Turkey to be translated into his search for solace.
Noor is fascinated by the notion of this transient transfer; the intimacy between the Seeker and what he seeks during prayers and tries to draw parallel to this tangent with places and faces he met during his journey.
How Dust Floats is an installation-based series made up of digital images, icons as well as texts. The series engages in the material to explore the ephemeral. The installation comprises of collages extracted from photographs captured during his sojourn, engaging in the fragmentation as a metaphor of dissolving attachments within the existential whirl of the Seeker. Playing off the allegories of white funeral shroud as well as fraying threads, the series is persistent in delving into the notion of Losing and Leaving.
The core of the installation is made up of unweaved prayer rugs, in a profound dialogue between Seeker and what he seeks. Rumi once mentioned, 'The wound is the place where the Light enters you.’ Noor posited his inquiry, “What if my Light is wounded?”, immersing in this quiet visual poem of reclaiming your heart whereby the praying mats become symbols for a heartbroken affair and the dissipating of faith.
The centerpiece becomes a resolution the artist gathered through the melodramatics of this disquietude and discord. An empty prayer rug nestled with a poem-prayer for the Seeker. That this death of an Image is that void Rumi kept asserting; not emptiness but a gentle surrenderment of a space to allow for Love and Light to inhabit.
The centerpiece becomes a resolution the artist gathered through the melodramatics of this disquietude and discord. An empty prayer rug nestled with a poem-prayer for the Seeker. That this death of an Image is that void Rumi kept asserting; not emptiness but a gentle surrenderment of a space to allow for Love and Light to inhabit.
As the Seeker trances, he loses what he sees before him and sees what is within him. A conversation, an intimate duet between two Lovers. A territory in which we be dust, within and around us.
Dear God, please ease my affairs like how effortless the streams meander.
Untie these knots across my heart like how dust floats, weightless.
Let peace be upon the hearts in disarray. And let calmness seep into the stirrings of heartstrings,
unto crevasses of heartbreaks;
all of mine, all of theirs.
Dear Azizam, trust me, I am as lost as you are. Worn out by the lights that promised to embrace us in heavenly proportions when our broken bones are too tired to reciprocate all they never will receive. Stop staring into me like your eyes a challenge to the sun, you are unfit and so am I, too restless for a care, too careless for a dare. Don't hold my words against me like childish musings you drape around your neck, your neck around my fingers, your skin like satin like sin like I will not play this game too suspicious. Too brave is this honesty, I am too foolish to be sober from my drunken dilemma. I walk and I am weak, I am lost again. I am one of you.
Don't forget to remember me. I am the comfortable darkness your eyes adjust to right before sleep and there again, in the morning, I am the first rays resting on your gentle bones. You said you don't need sleep. Darling, the nights are ours to weep. Kashan is so lucky to lay eyes on you everyday. "Cry a little for me, but pray for me more." Sometimes I wish I can forget the sound of your name, and the sound of my heart breaking. I have ran out of stars to grace my verses. I have ran out of breaths you can take. The wind is strangely full of itself tonight in Esfahan. You are dearly missed, I am terribly forgotten.
I have a dream. I have these visions of the sky in delicate white, like lilies raining down from heaven and oceans ankle deep, enough to cup my soft skull. Yet I am drowning when I lay myself down. These doubts like seeds across the bombed lands, seeds if you drown in your tears they will find a way to come back to meet air. Air if there is any at all, I still cannot breathe. I can see your face. I can see black roses. I can see blood. I can see red velvet. This is not the sea. And by night, the sun never set but pales in its tragedy. My father used to point me to the praying man on the moon when I was young. My father is not in my dream, but the man is still there in his quietude. Why is no one else looking? I can see bodies all around me, in black veils, their chests expanding like soft murmurs. The fabric slides around their lips, these are vows, these are promises. I forgot how words sound like. Hollow walls in underground cities, your name fails to echo. I am at loss for words. I am lost. Tell me your name. I am completely awake.
Oh beautiful eyes, why aren't you looking my way? I am trying to be effortless in my desperation, like stray lights surrendering to dusk. Till dust, I will stand still like a forgotten lover under the spine of the dome, these palms heavenward. Heavens, hear my relentless prayer for me to be trappings of light. Light that falls in passionate landings onto your eyelashes and stay. Stay like your eyes fixed on the traces of my mystery that stays like a mystery you don't want to solve. Stay like you want to want to look my way. Stay like you want me to stay.
We are one. We are two become one. Together, we are sunlight that carry dust across the room, we are morning dew, me and you. We are waiting for the world to change. We are at standstill. We are arctic blue, and we will always be on fire.We are flying and falling, dancing and bending our knees. We are articulate in our strange love, we are stuttering, we sin. We are insomniacs so we shall not miss, we are wide awake trying to kiss. We are not sure the shape of lips, we take dead petals for skin. We are closer than veins, and two moons apart, we are barren, we are all of rain. We are nothing, we are not worthy, we are all of the above, we are down below, we are in vain. We have not met.
I have a small favour to ask of you, if I may. Help me find a room. Small enough so I can feel the air tiptoe on the tip of my neck but big enough to contain us both. Space; enough for me to twirl, unfurl and when I fall again, I’ll have enough to let my body kiss gently unto earth, tender. You can hold me. We don’t need walls, we’ll just slump into the sunken bones of one another, our spines as neighbours. Our shadows can escape from our skin and burn themselves into the black of night or if they wish to, coil effortlessly into dark silks that keep us warm. Let me soak wholeness from your smile, your presence and your nearness. Don’t question my silence; instead blanket them with your comfort. We can still be still. We can let words not reach us, watch them crumble like wilted stalks. We can waltz within whispers. Let me fill in the gaps like phrases to musical scores. I’ll gather enough wind we both can be swept away by the shock of silence, I’ll let my breath glide the emptiness in merriment. May our warmth kill the ill, our soft remembrance resurrect the will to heal. You can watch me go but first you have to help me find that room.
I am seeking a home this time to tame my heart's solitude. A fortress strong like ancient stones to curb this madness. This weakness- these sins for you. A forest for my hiding it is time I stand this ground alone but if you are broken leaves too, I may let you come along. A frozen field of ombre dried flowers I will make a sanctuary to befriend my melancholia. Ruins, ruins of you and I. We are crumbling from the innermost peel I can feel this skin hurting at your touch, shaking at your absence. I will cry you a river and we shall swim, the moonlight our eyes. I cannot find the shore and neither can you. I will still come along if I were you. I see a home in you.
I was wounded. I don't have to have to tell you that. Istanbul bore witness. The minarets were gentle giants, their shadows dark clouds robbing the ruins of my bones. Bones like ashes in memory of our love, lost. Bones like aftermath of a raging storm. Bones like sipping the taste of heartbreak for this pain is literal. Bones like forgotten literature. Bones like buried in thick snow. Bones like absences. Bones not like bones anymore. The sun set over Istanbul that night. My heart dawned upon you and the dust of us all. I was bruised.
“The wound is where the Light enters inside you” -Rumi
But what if my Light is wounded?
But what if my Light is wounded?
khoda hafez.