Interview-In Conversation with Nima Zaare Nahandi about His Solo Show "Panspermia Blossoms"

• You began your studies in pure mathematics. How has that experience influenced the way you think and construct images in your artistic practice?

Let me make a small correction: I started my academic path in pure mathematics, but I continued my journey in the field of art. Mathematics is a discipline that is largely misunderstood, or perhaps more accurately, rarely understood correctly. The reason is that almost all sciences can be explained in a tangible way; for example, one can say music deals with sound, or sociology studies society. But mathematics remains abstract and opaque to an audience until one learns its language. It’s very much like a foreign language, if you don’t speak Japanese, you cannot understand two Japanese speakers conversing.

Yet for me, mathematics is an extraordinarily beautiful world, full of meaning and truth.
My father is a mathematician and researcher, well known both in Iran and internationally. Inevitably, his way of seeing and thinking has shaped me. This influence manifests in my own work as a constant desire to probe the depth of concepts; superficial approaches don’t satisfy me, and I don’t stop at the surface. I would say this is the most important thing mathematics has given me. Alongside that, my mind operates spatially and structurally, shaped by mathematical training.

•  You have lived and worked across Iran, France, and Spain. How have these different environments influenced your artistic outlook and methods?

There is one common thread I can mention across all these places. When I went to France to continue my studies, many of the professors there came from strong backgrounds in the humanities, and their frameworks were not always accessible or relatable to me. Connecting with them wasn’t very easy. But I developed meaningful and constructive relationships with two professors, one coming from neuroscience and the other from sociology. They weren’t confined to a purely art-historical or humanistic way of looking at things.
For this reason, in all the environments I’ve lived in, I’ve found myself gravitating toward people with multidimensional perspectives, those whose vision is not limited solely to art.

• Your work draws from evolutionary biology, botany, and cognitive science. What attracts you to scientific thinking?

When I left mathematics, I actually intended to pursue neuroscience, I had even selected the university. But I realized the life of a neuroscientist is primarily laboratory-based, and I didn’t feel close to that lifestyle. Still, I have continued to follow these fields as personal interests. Some phenomena and concepts are simply so inspiring that I feel if we were to explain them clearly to anyone, they would evoke excitement.
For example, something seemingly simple, like how a tiny organism can break a few molecules to release energy and keep living, is, to me, a question capable of thrilling any curious mind. This is the dimension I try to bring into my work: moments of wonder, awe, and astonishment woven into the fabric of natural phenomena.

• When beginning a new work, do you usually start with research or with an image/idea?

These two dimensions constantly feed one another. Often, I encounter an idea in reading that feels full of potential, something that illuminates meaning for me, and it might stay with me for years until the right artistic project emerges for it.
Conversely, sometimes a purely visual element gives me an aesthetic shock, I feel I’ve encountered something extraordinary. But after the initial reaction, I examine it conceptually. For instance, regarding my current works: I might see a stone that visually moves me deeply. Then I investigate why, I learn how it formed geologically, what its nature is, under what pressures and temperatures it emerged.
So sometimes the path leads from concept to image, and sometimes from image to concept, but ultimately they always converge.

• Precision and detail are central to your work. What role does this slow, meticulous process play for you?

My precision really comes from the fact that no phenomenon, whether a subject or a physical object, feels complete to me until I reach its inner mechanisms, its microscopic structure. I want to reach that micro-level; I want dissection and anatomical clarity.
Naturally, the further you go, the more the details multiply. When you adopt an investigative, dissective approach, you inevitably arrive at deeper layers of detail.

• Please describe the exhibition Panspermia Blossoms in your own words. What is the core idea?

The idea behind it has a theoretical foundation, something that has always fascinated me. What you see now is only one manifestation of it; it will likely take other forms in the future. The concept revolves around the transition from the non-living to the living and how this shift occurred in evolutionary history. We know it wasn’t a single moment or clear boundary, but what is known as the “Darwinian soup”, the environment in which matter, light, and temperature aligned in such a way that, at some moment, a simple molecule transformed into one capable of self-replication, has always been profoundly compelling to me.
Within this inquiry, one inevitably arrives at the question of the origin of life. That topic is so captivating that it leads to hypotheses suggesting life may have come from other solar systems, planets, or even galaxies, arriving on Earth, flourishing, and evolving.
This collection approaches the idea from a terrestrial angle, contemplating minerals and meteor-stones, elements that may have landed on Earth and, in the planet’s suitable conditions, germinated and created the groundwork for the emergence of life.

• In this series, fungi grow on onyx crystals, something impossible in nature. What does this “impossible union” signify for you?

If you looks closely at any phenomenon, you find an element of the impossible or unbelievable within it. But here, for me, the impossible functions as a metaphor, an homage to the force of conatus: the drive in all living beings toward survival, continuation, and preservation.
Again, it returns to the persistence and irrepressibility of life, how life always seeks to continue under any circumstances. This idea stems from that point: the tenacity, creativity, and innovative strategies through which life sustains itself.

• How did you choose materials such as onyx? What role does their physical presence play in the concept?

Around twelve years ago, I began a series called “Mineral Poetry,” and since then minerals, their textures, and the deep time embedded in them have captivated me. Understanding why layers form over millions of years, why within them strange forms of life emerge, has always been inspiring to me.

 

Choosing this direction was organic and intuitive. Among the different possibilities, I was instinctively drawn to these stones. Later, an exceptional opportunity arose that allowed me to realize these works materially and bring this collection to completion.

• This exhibition marks a move toward sculpture in your practice. Why did you decide to work in three dimensions?

From the beginning, as I mentioned, my works have always formed in my mind as spatial structures, they possess dimensionality and the potential to move into three-dimensional space. Of course, the transition comes with many challenges, but the possibility of becoming spatial is always inherent.
For this reason, I plan to explore installation and three-dimensional expression more extensively in the future.

•  In many of your works, scales, from microscopic to cosmic, intermingle. What draws you to this movement between scales?

There is truly a cycle between the part and the whole: within any whole you can find parts, and the deeper you go, the more you arrive at smaller units, and you can divide them endlessly. Through this approach, you reache structural elements, small and smaller. I believe this cycle always returns to its core; from the part you arrive at the microscopic, and from there to something even smaller.
It’s an old idea, but one that still holds meaning and relevance for me.

• What fields of research or new materials are you currently interested in exploring?

I would very much like to move toward discovering spatial and installation-based dimensions, to convey ideas through spatial narrative, something that unfolds directly within a physical environment.

• What would you like viewers to think about when encountering Panspermia Blossoms?

I hope the work stimulates something in the viewer that allows them to step away, even briefly, from a human-centered view of the world. A perspective in which everything is defined only in relation to humans and human societies. I hope viewers might adopt a broader perspective and sense that the world is composed of many elements and structures, with humans being only one among them.
Perhaps such a viewpoint can help them celebrate and enjoy life more fully.