Sara Mizannojehdehi
Illustrator and Digital Storyteller
Concert culture started in brassy and velveteen rooms where musicians played their instruments for those who wanted to see them. In the 1950s, it evolved into something else entirely. The phenomenon of the rock concert occurred for the first time in 1953. It fuelled the evolution of the fanbase and the rockstar, and by the 70s, Rock was in full swing, and the concert reached its first peak.
Situational Friends
Final Project at Canterbury High School
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The crowd is vast, quick, and impersonal, while the bus is compressed, slow and together. My mural attempts to show the contrast between the atmosphere of the bus and the crowd. At the same time, I attempt to put focus on the special connection created between people who spend time together in enclosed public spaces.
When people are solo and stuck in an enclosed public space for a long period of time, they attempt to distance themselves from loneliness by trying to find someone to relate to and become distracted with. Awkwardness and formality are exchanged for two dimensional conversations; no depth is present, but there is closeness. After these encounters, it is rare for us to look at these people the same way again.
My mural is inspired by a multitude of real life encounters my friends, family, and I had with strangers we met in enclosed public spaces. These encounters include the daily school buses I took going to Canterbury, a delayed train to Halifax, and a semester-long group project. In all of these events, complete strangers were transformed into situational friends. We were humans forced together, striving to find momentary attraction.
To present how different the crowd and the bus are from each other, I try to illustrate the headspace one is in when on a bus or in a crowd by using the repeated motif of ghost-like figures. These figures represent the people one is unfamiliar with. There are many of them in crowd, while in the bus they are disintegrating.
Overall, my mural emphasises how different the crowd and the bus are from each other. Although the crowd has more people, the bus brings people together.