Challenges and benefits of being an Artist in Chicago

Any move has its own challenges specially when you move to a new country and want to grow your art career in the best way possible. What makes it easier is when you have access to the right resources and are guided through the challenges by experts, it all makes it so much more easier to grow as an Artist. Being an artist these days, there is so much work to do in parallel of making art to be able to get where you want with a healthy mind and soul. I find myself extremely lucky to have found the support I needed with The Artists Next Level. Their available courses and guidelines are a great source for artists who want to take their Art Career seriously. They offer professional development courses for artists at all levels in their art career. I was thrilled to be part of one of their podcasts they did to share the challenges and benefits of being an Artist in Chicago. It was truly amazing to be part of it and also to be able to hear from all the other amazing Chicago based Artists. You can listen to the podcast HERE. My part starts on minute 17 of the podcast.

Pilsen's Show PODs interactive installations are inviting you to be part of it

Along Halsted and 18th in Chicago, there is a Persian vibe these days. The first opening night of WhisperingWalls installations was a success. Parts of the installations are interactive inviting its viewers to be part of it. The installation will be on view till November.

Being in a city like Chicago with a lot of diversity makes it even more interesting for a middle eastern artist like myself to try and share a message, show a part of culture usually people are not familiar with. This project has not been easy but I believe every artist is very inviting to a new challenge; in a way that is what really teaches us new ways of doing things as well. It has taken a lot of planning, sleepless nights and exciting days to get this project to where it is now.

Doing all the installations single handedly in a matter of few days is never easy but again its that kind of stress you would sometimes need to be able to push yourself even further. I could already see there were lot of interest, questions and feedbacks...which is always a good thing, at the end of the day, my aim is to get viewers interested in my culture, to want to know more about it and to get involved. Now with the power of social media, I am asking the viewers to take part in this project and share their images.

This year, we are also celebrating the 45th annual Pilsen East Artists open house as well which is falling on October 9th and 10th 2015 - Whispering Walls is honored to be also featured as one of the events for this year's Chicago Artists Month. Details on the timing and dates are as below:

2nd Friday, October 9th 2015: 6pm - 10pm Saturday, October 10th 2015: 11am - 7pm

Checkout images our lovely Chicagoans have shared through @SarvinHaghighi on Instagram, twitter. Whispering Walls will be there for few more weeks, take part and share it #WhisperingWalls #SarvinHaghighi

EAC Installation - First stages

I had the sketch, the idea, the vision and most importunely the approval to go ahead with my installation for the opening ceremony of Evanston Art Center (EAC)'s new location. Now it was time to make it happen. The theme is Hybrid's Paradise and as always my aim was to share my culture. My installation proposal consists of glass blocks which you see everywhere in Chicago mixed with Farsi calligraphy of Rumi Poetry and Persian and Islamic architectural designs.

I need to add that this is one of the installations I will have at EAC . The other one will be part of the same project but with completely different material. With these installations I aim to combine some part of both cultures of East and West.

After many trips to Home Depot (I can say I have hit most of their Chicago locations!) I got all the materials I needed. I did some testing obviously prior to get them all and worked my way through the process.

The blocks are not that light so to have 5 rows to 5 blocks each is not the easiest job to do. I am getting closer to the final stages and will post more images as we get closer to the event but the final creation will be revealed only on June 14th 2015 during the official opening ceremony of the new home for EAC.

Once again I can not mention how thrilled I am to be part of these amazing group of artists. More photos and updates coming up within the next few days. You will see the progress. You can also follow me on Instagram, Twitter and FaceBook.