Urban Landscapes: An Interview with Environmental Photographer Mona Miri

By Paul Kilpatrick

Brookline, MA. — Interview conducted on Dec. 19, 2009 for Sustainability Television

www.sustainabilitytelevision.com

Artist, environmentalist and humanitarian: three words that accurately reflect artist Mona Miri’s passions and her work. 

Photography is Miri’s preferred method of creative expression, through which she is building up an impressive portfolio of thought provoking environmental images depicting urban landscapes.  Concern for the environment is a subject matter dear to her heart, and Miri has focused on examining and portraying the urban environment in a manner that invites contemplation about changing landscapes and our relationship to nature. 

In Miri’s first exhibition, “Modified Landscapes”, shot entirely in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunter’s Point district, her powerful photographs of extensive industrial development are both visually striking and emotionally striking when considering the almost complete lack of nature in these places.  The dramatic change indelicately wrought upon the landscape is hard to overlook.

Considerate of the impacts of her own actions, Miri’s personal choices demonstrate her dedication to more sustainable living.  Amongst other choices, Miri does not own a car, finds ways to minimize the impacts of her photography processes, hand makes what she can, and purchases carbon offsets for her activities. 

In the following interview, Miri shares some thoughts about her work.

For more information about Mona Miri and a look at some of her photographs, visit her website at:  http://www.monamiri.com/

Her Facebook fan page can be found here:  http://www.facebook.com/printbrat?ref=mf#/pages/MONA-Miri/39567858467?ref=

PAUL KILPATRICK: From reading your website bio, I see you were born in Iran, but had to leave and you moved to Germany where you grew up.  What kind of adversity did you face as a child and how do you think it has influenced your work?

MONA MIRI: Yes, I was born in Iran and moved to Dusseldorf, Germany when I was about 5 years old and lived there for about 6 years or so.  We moved to the Boston area, Brookline, Massachusetts, and have lived here for over 19 years now.  From early childhood, having seen the hardships of a country at war at a young age I became more observant and curious about why things are the way they are and what we can do to make a difference. This became more apparent to me in my young adult life and I really reflected on my childhood; where I grew up and the countries and places I had seen throughout my life, as well as environmental changes around me.

KILPATRICK: At what point did you pick up a camera for the first time...and did you know right away that this was something special for you as a way of communicating?

MIRI:  Well, I first started sketching and painting and overall I was very interested in creative expression.  It was in junior year in high school when I first picked up my dad's Nikon F3 and started photographing things.  It was the first photography class in High school that made me realize how special this medium was and how connected I felt with the camera and what I saw in front me. It was the most connected I felt with a medium.

A New York trip with my friends changed my life in my junior year in high school because it opened up all my senses it seemed. I almost felt like I saw the world from a totally different perspective; in a more observant and intellectual way.

KILPATRICK:  Is photography your favorite creative way to communicate?

MIRI: Yes, at this time, I am very involved in photography creatively. I feel photography gives me the outlet I need to communicate with the world. I feel that I can express myself freely and communicate through a visual language.

KILPATRICK: Is there a particular photography subject you are most fond of at this point in your career (fashion, environmental, other...)?

MIRI: My concentration when I started photography was fine art photography and only in the past 3 years have I been able to see my work in a more commercial sense. I have always been drawn to industrial urban city settings because I felt there was this sense of immediacy in my surroundings that I needed to capture and document. That is how I became more involved in environmental work by photographing my immediate environment. It has slowly and surely evolved to photographing and ending up in places where the natural world seems to me to be absent; where all I can see in front of me are structures and urban city settings. It has made me think further about the contrast between our natural and built places.

KILPATRICK: What do you seek to communicate with your environmental photography?  To expand on that question a little...do you want the viewer to come away from looking at your environmental photographs thinking about anything in particular, or to leave it to the viewers’ interpretation?

MIRI:  Well, it has been my passion to be in this genre for quite a long time  -  about 7 years or so now. Like the greats and the master photographers like Edward Burtynsky, Micheal Kenna, Hiroshi Sugimotto and Richard Misrach to name a few, I hope to communicate an important message about our surrounding environment.  I always leave it to the viewer to visualize and observe how they would like to interpret it.  I hope that I can be an advocate and as well an inspiration to others.

It is a tremendous feeling when others recognize and appreciate what I am doing in my work.  It inspires me even more and gives me belief in what I am doing.

KILPATRICK: Perhaps a curious question here...but does your camera provide you with a sense of security?  For instance, are there places you might go or things you might do with a camera in front of you that you wouldn't do otherwise?

MIRI: I feel more so now that my camera has provided me with a sense of security and keeps me in check in a way. My camera and photography as a whole has challenged me and made me feel vulnerable at times (with respect to the process and the places I have been). I feel most of the time though that it has challenged me to reach for a greater level and to go to certain places where I normally would not go. Therefore, I feel it has been like an internal process for me, growing and developing as an individual as well as an artist.

KILPATRICK:  I have the sense that many photographers are often shy.  Perhaps this is because they are thinking visually about what they are seeing, rather than concentrating on verbal communication.  Does this apply to you at all?

MIRI: That is interesting you point this out. Some artists and photographers are very verbal as well, and try to explain what they are saying visually.   Most photographers are obviously very visual and when they can’t always explain exactly what they are visualizing verbally, you will understand it more when you see the finished work or product.  It does in some sense apply to me, as I really do like to be verbal as well about my work, although not to give it all away but also leave it to the viewer to interpret as well.

KILPATRICK:  Are you working on any environmental photography projects right now, or have any upcoming?

MIRI: I actually just did a climate change campaign for the “TckTckTck” organization that is sponsored by many great organizations like Care, WWF, the NRDC, and so on.  It was for raising awareness on environmental actions and topics. I did several portraits of adults and children of various ethnic backgrounds and cultures to represent that we are all in this as one, and that together we can make a bigger impact on our pressing environmental concerns.