SVACE: You have described how your portrait photos “become less about the individuals and more about a collective consciousness.” In the last year – given the pandemic, the election – we’ve learned more about that concept, “collective.” What does “collective” mean to you, and how does it manifest in The Moon Belongs to Everyone?

SM: The collective vis-à-vis the individual, is a theme I have explored throughout my practice. In The Moon Belongs to Everyone, the collective manifests as a group of people in shared experience, shared emotions, on common ground.

SVACE: The book is a meditation on migration, identity, and transitory life. You’ve shared how those themes are part of your lived experience. But as an artist, have you ever felt like an immigrant? That is, have you experienced creative changes – in medium, process, habit, or any other creative framework – that left you feeling out of place? Or perfectly at home?

SM: ALWAYS! I am constantly shifting, changing, growing, feeling out of place. I am not a documentary photographer, but my work is in dialogue with the traditions of documentary. I am not a video artist, but I use video often as a final output. I wrote a poem for The Moon Belongs to Everyone; I had never written one, and by no means am I a poet. One curator recently said to me, “You like a challenge.” I guess he is right.

A new photo book by Stacy Mehrfar, SVACE faculty member