We construct languages together to practice love and function in a communal sense. The marks we leave on time create not only memories but structures of communication and modes of understanding each other. Borders are rigid outcomes of linguistic systems, we inherit them as a social construct, and they are fragile enough that when one decides to rethink them, they show their humourous and harsh plasticity.

This Dog Is A Rose is a book mapping my relationship with my dog, pika/پیکا (b. 2020, Tehran), who now lives with my mother in Iran. Since I moved to New York in 2021, we’ve sustained our long-distance relationship through video calls and an ongoing exchange of visual and sonic material—daily recordings shared by my family, especially my mother.
The book draws from an evolving archive of this relationship: screenshots, photographs, and recordings that serve both as a personal record and a form of intimate exchange, alongside the words I once taught pika—our shared vocabulary—that continues to shape how we communicate across borders.

-Texts from the author.