EDITORIAL: Grief and Reincarnation
“Albizia julibrissin (gul-i abrisham)
The flower is shaped like a crown for mum her name Shirin ( meaning sweet )
A crown for the sweetness of her melody
For her beauty on this earth .
Graciously grant her to Paradise
Suffer her not to be tied down with gravity
Cultivate her in the garden of thy love.”
Sepehr Badiei was born in Iran, to an Egyptian mum and Iranian dad, fleeing the Iranian revolution at the age of 5, movement, motion, displacement, and survival have shaped Sepehr sees beauty, bodies and time. This work, created in a time of deep grief, was an exploration of the passage of grief, the changes, dissolving, and reforming that it brings.
Grief in Sequins and Mud
Rocking.
Crying like a baby
in a body that is supposed to be grown.
Without you two
I am an orphan.
Even with years in my bones.
Even with my own name on the door.
Gold trembling in the dark
your shoulders lit
like gold leaf .
Pink threads hanging from branches
like nerves the sky forgot to hide.
I miss the back up.
( I miss you )
The wall behind my spine.
The certainty that nothing could end me
while you were still here.
Praying at your feet
On arrival.
Mud does not shame you.
Water holds your reflection
like it understands
reincarnation is never clean.
Your voice txt healed me.
Just the way you said my name.
Now the wind says it differently.
Now the dark carries it further.
Birds become pure being
chanting your name into the sky
I am an orphan in this lifetime.
But you two
are sequins in the soil
light pressed into earth,
already stepping
into another beginning.
And I am still here,
rocking,
aching,
waiting for the lifetime
where I find you again
and the mud does not mean goodbye.
Artist : Sepehr Badiei
Photographer : Charlie Tallott
Models : Sven Ironside & DAFNI KRAZOUDI
Clothing : Maximilian Raynor , SEBASTIEN KWOK , Shannen Maria samuel
Boots : Natacha Marro
Make up : Kevin Cordo
Retouched : Elizabeth Derby and Helen Bykova, Dave Andrews
Special thanks to A Portuguese Love Affair & Medb Riordan