Art making, the creative process, and engaging with the imagination are acts of improvisation, rooted in discovery, playfulness, and uncertainty, which is actually where the strength of the engagement lies––the unknown is the defining aspect of some processes of making art. This happens when we submit ourselves to a current greater than our doing and submerge ourselves into this greater movement in order to return to the surface with what this engagement has given to us.

I’m curious as to how art making is often less about creating something from nothing, and rather about finding something to build something else out of. The starting process is connected to being given something from the world around us that we can do this with––art coming from found objects even if the object is not physical, even if the finding starts with us making the thing we find.

Anis Mojgani is a multidisciplinary artist from New Orleans, living in Portland OR. Inherent to his artistic explorations is a love for story and the belief that they are inherent to our being human––the telling of, the sharing of, the listening to them––though seeking less to tell stories and more so in simply finding them and the ways to let them tell themselves. A big believer in the power of imagination and the inherent nobility in humans, much of his work seeks to see where beliefs in these two powers can take root in the lives of others, while blossoming inside his own.

A two time National Poetry Slam Champion, winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, and multiple-time TEDx Speaker, Anis has been awarded residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, AIR Serenbe, The Bloedel Nature Reserve, and the Oregon Literary Arts Writers-In-The-Schools program. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, Buzzfeed, and the American Academy of Poets, and in such literary journals as Rattle, Platypus, Winter Tangerine, Forklift Ohio, Thrush, and Bat City Review, amongst others.