Living in Exile: An Interview With Kamin Mohammadi

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LIVING IN EXILE: AN INTERVIEW WITHKAMIN MOHAMMADI

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Art/CultureWords By: Luc Hinson Photography: Bernardo Conti 

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Luc Hinson sat down at length with author, journalist, broadcaster and public speaker Kamin Mohammadi. The two discussed her exile from her homeland – Iran, how the UK welcomed her in as a 9-year-old child in exile and her recent written works The Cypress Tree: A Love letter to Iran and her most recent publication Bella Figura. The full interview ensues below.

As a 9-year-old when she left her homeland, I didn’t expect Kamin’s recollections of her home to be so vivid and detailed but she painted an in depth illustrative account of Iran through Kamin’s greatest gift, her words. She describes seeing English people buying a single orange as being ‘exotic’, and her tales of arriving in this nation are overwhelmingly positive, Kamin’s story is told below, not only of her journey to the UK, but our continual journey of identification, and discovery. I’ll let Kamin’s words lead us from here.

Read our full Q&A discussion below:  BB: So how different was life in the UK to life in Iran, considering you moved aged 9?KM: It was really different, I supposed the most dramatically differently part of it was just that we were alone here. That was very dramatic solitude and loneliness. We children didn’t speak the language; we didn’t understand we couldn’t communicate. Everything was quite alien and different, but at the same time life in Iran the year before was extremely stressful and scary, it was quite nice to not be scared all the time. It was a complicated experience it wasn’t one thing, in spite of the negative aspects there were some massive overriding positives, the main one was safety, we were safe, no one was going to kill us in the night.

BB: How different is the climate now? do you think refugees receive a greater level of victimization?KM: In the last year that we were in Iran it changed so much, unrecognizably so. Suddenly stuff started to happen and adults started to be awfully tense, the sort of things you cant understand as a child. I think why I feel quite passionately given the current climate about immigration and who has the right to come. I find it really difficult because I don’t think people understand how complex that is, yes you’re grateful yes you’re happy to be here but you would much rather be at home. Generally people move countries because they really have to, generally people don’t really want to this idea that gas been really pervasive that there are poor people from Syria and the middle east and Africa, this kind of dialogue this manipulation this propaganda that these people are flocking here because they want to take they want to get their 30 quid a god dam week of job seekers allowance.

The biggest thing that the U.K has to offer for people coming here, is people come here for the rule of law, this is something you cannot appreciate how extraordinarily fundamental this is and how much its missing in a lot of other countries and even ive been spoilt as ive grown up here. When people come here that’s what they are coming for, they’re not coming here to rip off our great welfare system of the NHS, with Windrush this is how you see how fundamental this is and what happens when you don’t protect these things 

BB: Did you experience un-welcomness when you arrived?KM: No, I didn’t. Overtly no my own experiences of being made to feel uncomfortable were coming up against adults who weren’t sensitive, we didn’t really speak English, we were extremely traumatised from Iran but teachers, adults didn’t know this. My real experiences of kindness came from the children that we were with

I didn’t feel unwelcome but I did feel awkward or ashamed a lot, I felt ashamed because  wasn’t white I didn’t look like everybody I was different I had different growth rates I had hair on my legs at the age of 10 I was very different and that made me feel ashamed as there wasn’t a lot of space for my difference to be celebrated

BB: Aside from the language was there anything you struggled to adapt to? Any things that seemed just bizarre?KM: I think school was quite bizarre, it was really old fashioned, it was stuck in the post war era. Particularly, I found baths bizarre, what are you doing sitting in your own dirty water, although now I’m a bit of a convert and an extreme fan of baths. I guess we were just introduced to really weird things like flannels, I didn’t get them, why would you put a cloth and get all your dirt on it and then try and wipe your dirt off with the same cloth?

I suppose for us were quite indirect and sensitive I found the British way of saying things quite shocking and direct some of my friends would address my mother in a way that seemed so disrespectful but this is stuff that I now love! The lack of a hierarchy and openness across generation.

BB: In three words if you could describe what your Iran is?KM: Pistachios, pomegranates and nightingales or Love, laughter and Joy.

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Pictured: Kamin MohammadiPhotogapher: Bernardo Conti

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Kamin provided an honest and uncensored account of her journey to the United Kingdom, she described the ups the downs and the pure sense of safety she felt in the UK. Above all she continually reasserts a gratitude to the UK, a gratitude for providing her with safety, shelter and a home.  

The discussion then turned to her career, her inspiration behind writing and her plans for the future.

BB: When did you start writing and what was it that ignited this passion in you to write?KM:Even as a kid in Iran I can remember being six and reading Oscar Wilde’s kids stories, I just loved reading I loved books When life has been most difficult I’ve always just gotten into a book I love stories. I inherited the love of words books and language from my father and My mother’s family are real story tellers they are no intellectuals, but everything they say is a story told.To try and pinpoint it I guess there was one moment, my English teacher at school, she said something I’ve never forgotten, she was a very reserved woman, you know but she took me to one side and said: “Kamin you were born to write”My school despite the traumatic beginning was my refuge I thrived there, I found an outlet in writing and was writing for school magazines from the age of 13 onwards. At this time, growing up a teenager I loved magazines it was the 80s, you know I-D magazine, that explosion of pop culture was invigorating we were really into that, I loved magazines, I wanted to be a features writer, I wanted to be a magazine editor, I wanted to be a travel writer, whatever I was doing I always wanted to write.I don’t know who steered me in any of these directions, my parents were those kinds of immigrants who said right you’re going to be a dentist or a lawyer, for them the arts weren’t particularly attractive, but here I am haha.

BB: What was the driving force pushing the writing of the Cypress tree, what pushed you to want to write about home?KM: I don’t have another subject I think. I even think that Bella Figura, if you read it in the spaces it’s about Iran. In Florence, I met this wonderful woman, this extraordinary artist named Betty Woodburn, she brought ceramics into fine art, she asked me to pose for her which was strange. I was in the process of writing the Cypress Tree at this time, and she treated me as an artist and I never thought of myself as an artist, and in various points when drafting the cypress tree, I lamented the loss of characters in the drafting process. She would say to me don’t worry about those losses, in a lifetime of work you will keep coming back to your subject, your thing, the subject that compels you, you will always come back to this.

What compels me was that if I didn’t write about this I would go crazy! I’m compelled to write about it, I’ve spent many many years talking to all my friends about Iran and they told me write it down we can’t keep track of all the names, all the family links!

One of the lovely things about the Cypress tree, I hear from people from all around the globe and they write to me because they find a common experience in the book. So, I think the nice thing about laying out a story like that is that there’s the stuff that seems really exotic and the stuff where the people are like oh I’m learning this is great and then there’s the stuff that’s in the middle of that where it also speaks to you, and you have a lot of commonalities, I’ve found a lot of people say there is a lot to relate to even though they are from a completely different country, a completely different culture.That’s the message behind my work if there is one, that we’re different but we’re similar, we must embrace our commonalities because when you look at the language that is used to alienate and dehumanise it’s about making people unhuman. If you strip it all back we have our different ways of doing things, our differences our different dances but you know we all love our kids, we all want a roof over our heads, we all want to fall in love, take off our skin and we all have the same organs.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="row" make_fullwidth="on" custom_padding="15px|0px|15px|0px"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_divider admin_label="Divider" color="#ededed" show_divider="on" height="2" divider_style="solid" divider_position="bottom" hide_on_mobile="off" disabled_on="off|off|off" /][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" disabled_on="on|off|off" header_line_height="1.2em" text_font_size="45px" text_line_height="1em" custom_margin="50px|50px|50px|" custom_padding="0px|||" saved_tabs="all"]

"CAN WE HAVE A LITTLE MORE OPENNESS TO OUR INTERDEPENDENCE, THE THINGS THAT WE THINK ARE GREAT ABOUT BRITAIN WOULD NOT EXIST IF WE WEREN’T EXPLOITING ALL THESE OTHER PLACES."

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider admin_label="Divider" color="#ededed" show_divider="on" height="2" divider_style="solid" divider_position="bottom" hide_on_mobile="off" disabled_on="off|off|off" /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="Row" make_fullwidth="on" custom_width_px="2600px" custom_padding="0px|0px|0px|0px" parallax_method_1="off" parallax_method_2="off" custom_padding_last_edited="on|phone" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" max_width="3000px" text_font_size="15px" text_line_height="2em" text_line_height_phone="1.5em" text_line_height_last_edited="on|phone" custom_margin_phone="|-15px||-15px" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"]BB: When I say the word Britishness what does that word mean to you in the 21st century? K.M: Instantly, fairness, safety the rule of law and humour. I love the sense of humour here. And individuality the extreme freedom the brits give you to be yourself. That doesn’t exist in Italy you know, there are certain outfits I wear here that my husband says if you wore that in Italy you would get arrested. I think from the beginning the thing that has made me in love with Britain is that sense that you can step out of the door with your pants on your head and no one cares, that’s wonderful I love that.  BB: As someone who has lived in the U.K since the late 70s early 1980s in that timespan from then to now how do you think attitudes towards race and identity have changedKM: I definitely think they’ve changed for the better, I know were in a weird moment now but I only think there is because there’s been so much positive change. I think we probably still have a way to go, I think the imperialist and colonialist past of this country is very tricky and I don’t think the culture deals with it there’s a really clever way in which its been glorified, I think there’s a lot of unravelling of that that needs to be done, but step by step right that has to be something that’s done when people feel comfortable.Iranian oil, tea from India, countless other goods, the revenues of these things is what made Britain great and when we say what are we so proud of in Britain - the welfare system, the health service, all those institutions that were set up after the war were enabled form the revenue of our oil, their tea, some spices, sometimes it’s difficult to bring this to people attention because they feel that they should apologise for it, you always say to people it’s not your fault. I want people to have an increased awareness, this ugly period I feel Is happening, where people are saying that Britain is great and you should be grateful that we let you in, and in response you want to go mate, your amazing health service was built off the revenue of the oil from my country. Can we have a little more openness to our interdependence, the things that we think are great about Britain and institutions that we hold up would not exist if we weren’t exploiting all these other places. LH: I couldn’t agree more, fundamentally it’s not about assigning guilt and pointing the finger. It’s not about making people feel bad it’s about wanting people to know and understand BB: What’s next for you in 2018 what are you looking forward to achieving this year?KM: Well, Bella Figura has just come out in the U.K this year, it’s going to come out in the US and Canada. What I would really like is just to get opportunities through these books to do interesting work, whatever that means, be it through making a TV series, speak at an Iranian convention, I’m into so many different things you know I run yoga retreats, I would just love really to be able to keep on connecting and communicating with people at different levelsIn terms of my writing I’m absolutely itching to get back to writing about Iran again, there’s a lot more still to be said, so you know that’s what I would like to be able to keep expanding, and reach as many people as possible I love public peaking going around and talking to everyone who would like to listen!   Kamin’s book Bella Figura is out now and available to purchase here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bella-figura-9781408856208/[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"]

Website: www.kamin.co.ukInstagram: @kaminmohammadiTwitter: @kaminmohammadi

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