CONTEXTS

Abbas Zahedi’s interdisciplinary work—spanning installation, sound, and social ritual—has offered me a compelling model for how art can act as a vessel for reconnection. His practice embraces liminality: the space between grief and healing, sound and silence, absence and presence. In this threshold, Zahedi creates encounters that invite reflection, dialogue, and repair. This resonates with my ongoing exploration of mycelium as a living metaphor for entanglement, memory, and regeneration.

What I find particularly valuable in Zahedi’s approach is his commitment to creating spaces of care. Rather than presenting fixed narratives, he holds open a field for transformation—one shaped as much by the viewer’s presence as by the materials themselves. His use of sound, especially, has inspired me to reconsider the sonic dimensions of my own work with fungi. Where I previously attempted to mould mushroom-generated signals into recognisable musical structures, I now feel encouraged to treat sound as a form of presence—non-linear, ambient, and emotionally attuned.

Zahedi’s emphasis on ritual, silence, and shared space also offers a framework through which I can deepen the performative and experiential aspects of my installations. His work has led me to think more about how people encounter my sculpture—not just as a visual object, but as an invitation to slow down, to feel, and to listen. There’s a deep generosity in Zahedi’s work that I aspire to echo: a trust in the process, in the audience, and in the unknown.

In the same way Zahedi draws from personal, cultural, and spiritual histories to create resonant, open-ended spaces, I aim to harness the organic intelligence of mycelium to suggest new ways of relating—to ourselves, to the environment, and to one another. His work reminds me that reconnection is not only a theme, but a methodology. I see in his practice a call to surrender control, to honour the unseen, and to hold space for change—principles that align profoundly with the ethos of working with living material.

As I move forward, I hope to integrate more of Zahedi’s sensibility into my own: designing experiences that are not only sculptural but also sonic, spatial, and emotionally responsive. His practice gives me permission to step further into the unknown and to trust that presence, process, and participation are powerful forms of healing in themselves.