'The Corona Days:' Afsoon's Artist Diary

“They’re whimsical in a way, they’re funny and colourful, but at the same time they are kind of sad.”

Iranian artist Afsoon has started ‘The Corona Days’, a diary of watercolour drawings that chronicle the experience of the Coronavirus pandemic. Part diary and part art therapy, Afsoon finds her sketchbook “a useful tool to control where my mind was trying to burst out.” As part of the exercise Afsoon pays attention to the feel of each day. She expresses her first emotion on waking in her sketchbook, working on and around it through a cast of characters, quotes, and memories. In our conversation, Afsoon discusses her obsession with travel, the poetry she has been reading over the last few weeks, and why the plants in her apartment have inspired her during the lockdown. 

Afsoon: When this thing happened I started seeing changes in myself, about over a month ago, because I’ve just been reading too much of what’s going on around the world. I started just drawing and initially it was to cheer myself up, to think about it being sunny, to think about my travelling - because I love travelling - and all that, and slowly it sort of morphed into the daily feel - what immediately hits me during the day.

Afsoon’s diary for March 16th.

Like today I was looking at some bulbs I’ve planted in pots in my apartment which are just coming up. The avocado is shooting, and I thought well the nature is sort of continuing, and they’re stuck in these pots in this flat forever, and they’re not stopping - although they’d rather be on some caribbean island being a great avocado tree. So today I’m going to do some nature stuff, because I think isn’t it amazing how things continue...

RUYA MAPS: Yes, I have the sense when you look at the images that it’s like an experience which a lot of us are having where you become very aware of each individual moment, but looking at your pages it is like each moment is being handled and set aside, and properly looked at in a way that we don’t normally do because we are not as aware of time as we are right now.

“I’m re-familiarising myself with a place which was supposed to be very familiar, my own flat, but in a way has been taken for granted and not appreciated.”

A: I mean in a way, I spend a lot of time normally. I go to galleries and museums, and I meet people for tea and chat, and I travel. Now I don’t have any of those things, so my time is purely just to be home and to look inside a lot more, and look inwards. In a way it’s quite healthy, if there wasn’t a fear of getting sick and also of people losing family members, in a way I think we’ve been running in this hamster ball for too long.

RM: I noticed as well on your website, that there was a description of your work that said it was about “the simultaneously familiar and the foregin” and that to me really sounded like a lot of people who are stuck at home now because of the quarantine, and they’re in spaces that are very familiar because they are domestic, but there is also a kind of foreignness because we’re put on edge in a space which should be so comfortably. 

A: I mean even in my own flat, collecting art books is a passion of mine, and you buy a book, read it quickly or look at the artworks, and shove it on a shelf. Now I take the books out every day and I look at the artworks carefully, and in a way I’m re-familiarising myself with a place which was supposed to be very familiar, my own flat, but in a way has been taken for granted and not appreciated.

So, yes that foreignness and that un-familiarity, and I think that also comes with the Corona Days. The images have resonated with a lot of people on social media, I think because they’re whimsical in a way, and they’re funny and colourful, but at the same time they are kind of sad and show anxiety. The other day I did one that was a bad day, so I did a woman who was from the 1920s in costume, and I just said you know some days are worse than others. It’s just the way it is and we will continue because we have no other choice but to keep going and be hopeful.

RM: I guess the diary form helps with that because you are chronicling something, and it is taking it day by day. There is always the reassurance that there is another day to draw about, and to review. 

A: Yes, and routine! I do my yoga and listen to chanting music, and then I think okay I am going to look at my diary. By about 4pm it’s finished, I’ve glued things and flattened my notebook, and in a way it's quite settling to have that to look forward to. Once this is all over, I shall continue with the diary, perhaps it will change form and become something, but I will continue every day to express what comes in immediately - the first emotion, and to work on it and to work around it.

“ I will continue every day to express what comes in immediately - the first emotion, and to work on it and to work around it.”

RM: For many artists right now there is a pressure to be productive, because there is this gift of time and so many things to do, go learn a language or read that book that you always wanted to read, but actually it is nice to work at something which you already have.

A: I think when you force yourself to do something you will never be natural, and in a way I think everything has to come from deep inside. For years I used to say that every summer I am going to read Proust, this summer I am going to read Proust, I’ll go to France and I’ll read Proust. And I’ve never done it, you know I’ve bought it, I’ve started it and then I’ve discarded it because it is not the right time. I know there will come a time when I will grab Proust without having planned it and it will be the right time to read it. That’s why I’ve forced myself not to do anything particular this time. if it comes I’ll take it and I’ll make it work.

RM: I saw in quite a few of the images there is a response to the every day - whether this is a good day or a bad day - but there is also quite a lot of escapism that takes different forms. So there’s the really beautiful page where  you are talking about a coconut and there memory is a form of escapism, and then where you talk about Japan and your plans and travel being another kind of escapism. It seems like you can tap in to both within the page.

A: Yes, and almost calm myself. Those were the days when I was quite anxious: is this ever going to finish? What if I get sick? I’m slightly hypochondriac so I was worrying about that. In order to push that aside that’s why I imagined having coconut juice. Thinking back to where I had it, and was it in Sri Lanka or India? That goes on the page because I think there will be other times when I will have coconut juice. I’ve been wanting to go to Japan since I was 3 and maybe it is time to actually do that so I promised myself, this is it, I will actually go next year.

“ I don’t know how long we will be excited to run to museums and cafes and bookshops, and to see all your friends and hug them. It might last for a month or 6 months, or a year. ”

[When the lockdown ends] I think that these emotions and feelings perhaps will last for a while - I don’t know how long we will be excited to run to museums and cafes and bookshops, and to see all your friends and hug them. It might last for a month or 6 months, or a year. But it will go back to normal, and while we are in this looking forward to what the world has to offer I think is essential. I need it, otherwise I will just fall apart, so I do plan things. 

RM: Something that I also noticed across how your work has been described is that it focuses on an East meeting with the West, and is positioned somewhere between the two. Reflecting that in the light of the Coronavirus crisis being such a global experience and it is something which lots of different communities and cultures are going to have a shared experience of. I think particularly with refugees and migrants, a lot of people now have some more empathy for what it feels like to not have the bare necessities of life, and what it feels like to not be able to move where you want to move.

A: I hope so, and I was reading that someone was saying ‘oh it’s going to be people in their nice comfortable house, and having wine, and listening to music’, and now in India people have to walk 400km to go back to the villages they came from because of unemployment caused by the lockdown. That is suffering, we are actually not suffering in our comfortable, warm, beautiful places. I hope at least some people, it will not be all people, but I hope they would have more sympathy for others. This is going to affect a lot of people for much longer than for us. The ripple effect of just one waiter not being in work affects so many, because they are not just one person, there are so many attached to them. 

We always turn around when we see disasters because it doesn’t affect us, and this is the first time it feels to be affecting us, knowing of your friend’s grandma in Italy dying or someone’s uncle. I think it is really an eye opener this time around.

RM: I guess as well as the scale of it, which is so shocking, but also I feel there has not been a pandemic when there has been social media developed to the extent that it is now. Just in terms of being able to see what is happening in other countries and how people are responding in real time. 

A: It definitely makes me very anxious because I am constantly looking at the countries I care about. I love Mexico and I was looking at what is going on there, and a Mayor was saying this is a disease that only happens to rich people because they travel, so the indigenous people did not need to worry about it. It was just like a pain in my heart, the dismissiveness of it all, so I wish I had not read that! 

“Through my work I create things that I have lost, almost like making this imaginary world that I want to live in. A lot of my watercolours are based on my family’s photograph albums, but I mix people up and I put them in situations that I want them in. ”

RM: I see in your diaries there are references to each day, like when you comment on the first day of spring or different festivals, but there is also something comforting in the historic figures and quotes that you put in. Thinking of things that have come before and that will still be there as a comfort! The amount of wider perspective that that gives us…

A: And also continuation! You always have to look back, because we have gone through all of this before. My past plays a big part because all my work is very much autobiographical and is always looking back. Through my work I create things that I have lost, almost like making this imaginary world that I want to live in. A lot of my watercolours are based on my family’s photograph albums, but I mix people up and I put them in situations that I want them in. Or a lot of the stuff is poetry based, because I also read a lot of poetry. 

RM: Is there any poetry or music that you would recommend that you have been listening to a lot recently?

A: I have been listening to a lot of Nina Simone. I don’t know why, but there is something very uplifting about the way she sings about subjects that are a bit sad, like loneliness, but also with an attitude which is like ‘yes, that happened to me, shit happens, but I’m here and I’m singing about it and I’m alright.’ And in terms of poetry, this wonderful Polish poet whose work I was reading a lot of all last week, Wisława Szymborska. It is poetry which is very inward, it is a lot about her home life, her looking at people who are very close to her, and her interaction with what is near her which I think is very good for now. 

RM: I think people need a guide to where suddenly they’re in close proximity, where they are living with family say, especially when you are not used to having to do so much introspection, I think having poetry can really help hold your hand through that.

A: You know I’m Persian, so we didn’t really have much except from the mid-twentieth century onwards in terms of painting and sculpture. But what we had as an art form over the centuries was poetry. So we grew up not being scared of reading poetry. To me reading poetry is the simplest thing, and when people say they don’t know how to understand it, you understand what you want to - it’s not like a manual of how to put a cabinet together - it is for you to take what you want, even if you take one word from it. So poetry is a great thing for these days, just sit and read one poem and think about it for the rest of the day.

You can follow updates from Afsoon’s ‘Corona Days’ series on RUYA MAPS’ Instagram Stories, or follow her directly @Afsoonafsoonagain.

[This interview has been edited for clarity]