Almost Real

Almost Real explores how personal and collective traumas are often abstracted, minimized, or erased. History tends to reduce people to numbers—counted, filed, and forgotten—while the weight of loss, displacement, and survival remains unrecorded. Through figuration and abstraction, Alahverdi questions how reality is shaped—or dismissed—by collective perception. Is it enough that something happened, or must it also be seen and acknowledged to exist in the world’s memory? Or perhaps reality isn’t just what happened—but what’s allowed to be known.

This series of interactive mixed media works invites viewers to engage actively. By shifting perspective or using blacklight to reveal invisible ink, they uncover what lies beneath the surface—narratives otherwise unseen. In this act of discovery, witnessing becomes personal.

Almost Real asks us to look again—to notice what’s overlooked and recognize stories hovering at the edge of visibility, waiting to be seen, felt, and remembered.