On the 20th of September 2014, around 7:30am, Arash Fayez left his house in a quiet neighbourhood of San Francisco. Soon after, a man approached him, holding a piece of paper with an enlarged photo of his face. Before he could fully process what was happening, pointing at the photo, the stranger asked: “Are you Arash Fayez?” From the corner of his eye, Arash noticed two other men moving closer from either side. They were plainclothes officers from the Immigration Enforcement agency. That day, Arash was arrested for overstaying his student visa.
Three years later, his immigration status still unresolved, Arash voluntarily left the US heading to London. Before permanent departure from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, he sent an email to his immigration lawyer requesting a full copy of his dossier. When he landed at Gatwick Airport, a 312-page document was awaiting in his inbox.
Apolis is the visual autobiography of Arash Fayez’s life in limbo during those years. The work combines official records with photographs taken over the same period. This juxtaposition creates a multi-layered narrative, revealing contrasting perspectives. One that tracks the complicated administrative procedure with its endless repetitions and throwbacks. The other depicts the everyday life of someone living in-between, quotidian moments captured while awaiting a decision or a resolution, stuck in a pile of documents.
The title Apolis refers to the Ancient Greek word ápolis: “without city, state or country”. The project stemmed from a conversation between Arash Fayez and his immigration lawyer, whose succinct explanation of his legal status encapsulated the situation’s complexity: “You are not illegal, but you are not legal either.”
Arash Fayez (b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is an artist working with different forms of image-making, exploring notions of in-betweenness. As a native of Iran who relocated to the US, before moving to the UK and then Spain, where he currently resides, Fayez’s work often departs from his own experiences of moving from one place to another. At times, the autobiographical references in his work are interlaced with other historical and fictional narratives to evoke a sense of being in transient locations, cultures or identities. His inquiries into liminal spaces, geographic or otherwise, take the form of writing, performance, and video.
Fayez has presented his works at venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York); Musée du quai Branly (Paris); the British Museum (London); the Wattis Institute (San Francisco); Asian Art Museum (San Francisco); Württembergischer Kunstverein (Stuttgart); Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (Arizona); Cineteca Matadero (Madrid); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco); and La Virreina Centro de la Imagen (Barcelona). He has an MFA from California College of the Arts (San Francisco) and a BA in Architecture from Soureh University (Tehran).
[Text courtesy of MACBA, Barcelona]