Saeeid Dastmalchian: Painter, Photographer, Graphic-Designer, Author, Publisher and Peace Activist

IT STARTED
at the age of 5 in 1975 in Teheran when my parents followed the advice of my uncle to employ a private art teacher for their youngest son. They hoped the teacher could make him change his undefinable paintings into something concret. But this experiment didn't last for a long time since the teacher realized that the child was not willing to exchange his fantasy pictures against "peppy vases" and opulent "fruit landscapes" ...

Actually, I had a beautiful childhood - a carefree time with a lot of free rein. Everything seemed possible in my fantasy world, and my curiosity did not stop even not before the most amazing toy gift that had to be necessarily inspected by me with a screwdriver and pliers to explore the inner workings of things. But often was the realization very sober and unsatisfactory. Under the outer cover usually indefinable parts were hidden that did not want to fit together when I tried to screw them together again ...

BUT EVERYTHING CHANGED
with the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980. Fear, hatred, grief and helplessness spread like the plague across the country and my carefreeness got lost under the rubble of war reality. In order not to become victim of this madness, my parents decided to send me to Germany. I was 13 and entering Germany was more than a challenge for me who knew only Mercedes Benz and some name of football players of the German national team.

EXPERIENCES SHAPE US
but it is our decision which experiences we want to cultivate in us. When my father visited me in Germany later, he asked me the question about the "half-full or half-empty glass". I realized that only my kind of view of things makes the difference. Even the worst experience can salvage something positive in itself. In Germany I have learned that everybody is his good fortune wrought and that the responsibility for our growth is in our own hands. This fact might be hard to understand in many difficult situations: But what we experience outside are reflections of the manifestations that we carry within us. If we recognize this, we already know the whole truth about our lives.

WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.
This simple principle I want to convey to people with my work and invite them to practice altruism. Not because of religious reasons, but from the simple desire to experience love and spread it out.