TITLE: Bloom

"BLOOM is a collection of more than seven hundred recycled cups and flatware repurposed into floral shapes and displayed as part of a couture gown. The idea of making plastic flowers occurred to me while hanging out at a house party surrounded by people drinking out of solo cups and using excessive amounts of plastic flatware and paper plates. I realized not only how much we throw away, but also how accustomed we are to single-use, temporary items. We seldom stop to think about the inherent loveliness these objects can contain. Instead of becoming part of a landfill, I gathered the discarded materials and creatively recycled them into something beautiful. In this series, I have created fine-art-styled fashion photographs using recycled products, redefining the idea that “beautiful” inevitably means “new.” The main goal of this project is to use the photography medium to remind us all about the dangers of overproduction and consumption of plastics and encourage alternative and artist"

AUTHOR: Tirdad Aghakhani (United States)

Tirdad Aghakhani is a photographer and visual artist based in California. His love for human beings is exhibited through his work, largely collections of ordinary people, artists, and fashion photography. His artistic and poetic vision behind the camera has shaped his unique style of photography.

Growing up in a middle-class family, it was his mother who fostered his innate passion for art. Tirdad graduated with a degree in graphic design and simultaneously discovered his love of photography. In 2006, he was hired as the director of one of the largest photography studios in Iran until fleeing to Turkey in 2012 as a gay refugee. In Turkey he was hired as a post-production manager for a professional commercial photography studio and worked as a photographer and graphic designer for multiple European companies through 2015.

He continued to photograph portraits of refugees as an ongoing project, which resulted in a series named Torang (Pheasant), which deals with the life of an Iranian refugee female dancer and was later featured as part of a 2017 exhibition in Los Angeles. He pursued a Master of Arts in Photography from Academy of Art University and graduated in 2020.

His photographs have won multiple awards and been published in various magazines, including Vogue Italia. His quest for new experiences has made him an artist with a wide range of skills and unique works.