all stories are true getting smaller
identity | essentials by reza aliabadi
names places migration l imits reduction
Episode A; rzlbd Late November in 1998, I was in rush to leave for Syria on a business trip. Having a personal email address had just started to be a trend then; it was fashionable to have one. You were able to check your email only at internet-cafés, because having access to the Internet was difficult at home at least in many cities including Tehran where I used to live. I knew that through my business correspondence in Syria I would need an email address. I had just a couple of minutes left to get on board, and a friend of mine was helping me get registered on Yahoo! We tried my full name in different ways such as: Reza Aliabadi, Aliabadi Reza, rezaaliabadi, raliabadi and the like. We did even try it with a few symbols (-, _, /) between my name and family name, but it was useless, they all had been chosen earlier. That was the first time that I understood, there are other people with same name in the world. Although it was funny, I had no time to think about that. When, my friend was playing around with letters and symbols, I came up with an idea. I just wrote down my full name, got rid of all vowels, and put the rest together. Here is the process: reza aliabadi > reza aliabadi > r_z_ _l__b_d_ > rzlbd The result was amazing at least for me. Under the pressure and tension of losing my flight, I had come up with a miniature version of my identity. An index of my own, which carried the whole essence of my ID and at the same time, was unique. There might be other Reza Aliabadis but there was only one rzlbd. Now, more or less after a decade it has become the very name of my atelier, my website, almost my personal signature, and my sole mark.
Episode B; pair of 30-kg suitcases I will never forget sitting behind my used-to-be desk, in my used- to-be office, making an exclusive list of all my used-to-be assets. I had finally made the decision to leave Tehran for Toronto, and the challenge was how to convert my whole life into two suitcases, each with a maximum weight of 30 kilograms, respecting the IATA regulation for overseas flights. To make the exercise easier, I had omitted the office and its furniture, my apartment and its furniture, my car and a few other large-scale bits and pieces. Although it was a gigantic cheat, I was still confused as to how make choices. As an architect I had lots of models and panels of my projects, as a book lover I had more than thousand books in my office and home, and as a human being I possessed lots of belongings. This stuff, clutter, and the like had surrounded me, each screaming to be included in the ‘to go’ list. As there was no room for every thing I sold my personal library, gave the models and panels as gifts to employees and colleagues, and filtered personal stuff to make belongings as minimal as possible. Though it was hard to ignore lots of beloved possessions with their memories and passions and although many of them had been achieved through effort and struggle, it was a situation that I learned from. Surprisingly things and priorities expose their real value in tough circumstances. One learns how to do without things and how to skip unnecessary things. It is almost three years that I have been living with 60 kilograms of possessions and have been trying not to add clutter to my cart. Well, I know that I may be a traveller again, and there is nothing better than being weightless.
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On Site review 23 Small Things
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