The wall #38 2010

Abbas Kiarostami made this photograph, The Wall #38, and you can really feel his eye for the textures of the world around us. It’s all about the process – erosion, decay, the accumulation of stuff over time. Look closely at the surface: the cracked plaster, the crumbling mud bricks. It’s like a history lesson written in texture. The way the light catches the rough edges, the subtle variations in color – it’s almost painterly. It reminds me of a Kurt Schwitters collage, or maybe some of the Arte Povera artists who were working with humble materials back in the '60s and '70s. There’s this one spot, just below the window, where the mud seems to be peeling away in layers. It’s such a small detail, but it tells a whole story about time and change. In the end, it’s not about perfection, it’s about embracing the beauty of imperfection, the poetry of the everyday.