Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nooshin Rostami. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Nooshin, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Creativity is not something I keep alive; rather, it is what keeps me alive.
The first hours of the day are the most sacred to me. After writing a few pages of stream-of-consciousness, an exercise in listening to my inner voices, I close my eyes for intentional deep breathing and often do a visualization meditation. In this daily practice, I discovered a reptilian creature with wings that once appeared as an androgynous figure of wisdom in my consciousness and stayed with me ever since. This lovely and kind-hearted dragon comes to pick me up for journeys above the mountains or in deep water when I need emotional guidance.
There is no limit to time and space on a dragon ride. Our last ride was on a hot summer day when I woke up feeling drained, sad, and overwhelmed because of a hurtful interaction I had the day before. After writing my morning pages, I sat down to meditate. A voice inside reminded me to meet with the dragon. Our ritual of finding one another starts with deep breaths in and out, while I imagine my body filling with warm and soothing light particles until they overflow from the crown of my head into the room.
In a space filled with yellow, powder-like light, the dragon awaited me. We flew to the Persian Gulf to dive and cool down. As I plunged into the glittering water under the sunshine, I could taste the salt and feel the freshness of the water on my skin. I began swimming around, observing the wonders of the deep. Soon, I encountered an octopus who scanned and studied every part of my body with their tentacles. I didn’t need to say much, as the healer octopus knew exactly what was in my heart and on my mind. The octopus pulled out the heaviness of my emotions, packed them in an oyster, and made me understand that I could return to collect the pearl inside the oyster another time.
The sound of clinking dishes from the kitchen and the smell of coffee brewing became my alarm. It was time for the dragon to drop me off. After a smooth ride back to the yellow light, with a few more intentional breaths, I opened my eyes while wiggling my toes in joy. I felt uplifted, lighter, and ready to get on with the rest of my day.
A year ago, a healing meditation would have seemed unbelievably out of reach for me. It took making self-care a daily, playful practice to achieve it.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a self-made dreamer and doer. I create as an artist, innovate as an entrepreneur, and build communities as a creative healer.
I moved to New York from Tehran, Iran, in 2009 and immediately had to adapt to a new culture, language, and lifestyle. My immigration to the US felt like a flip of a coin, turning my world upside down and keeping it that way ever since. Making art has been my refuge, where I feel the most sane, although I sometimes create insane artworks. No matter how busy life gets, art is a constant stream that I keep flowing one way or another.
My mission in art-making is to craft curious and playful spaces that encourage new ways of seeing and perceiving the world. I have worked with different mediums in my practice including immersive art installations, sculptures, performance art, video, and drawing.
The ingredients I play with in my studio that excite me the most are light, shadows, reflections, and elements of space. In 2017, I started a light laboratory where I collect mirrors, glass prisms, and objects with reflective or transparent surfaces to study how they cast shadows and light. The light laboratory is my place to reflect and illuminate while cultivating curiosity, deep contemplation, and multiple perspectives. I take my learnings from the laboratory and collaborate with professional glassblowers to produce solid glass lenses that simultaneously reflect both micro and macro visions. These sculptural lenses also function as instruments that create fluid and magical light drawings.
After several years of nurturing a career in the Artworld, I felt called to rethink my path as an artist. Chasing the idea of being a full-time artist in New York City – an idea subconsciously fed to me as the definition of success – no longer resonated with me. Maintaining an art career involved producing new bodies of work, exhibiting my work locally and internationally in galleries and museums, participating in art residencies, and continually applying for fellowships and grants. To maintain the status quo, I found myself wearing too many hats simultaneously, teaching in public schools, being an adjunct at universities, and taking on freelance design gigs, that eventually led to burnout. I wanted to work in a world that reclaimed life from burnout culture and reinforced human interconnectedness instead of celebrating hyper-individualism. Changing the way I work, meant realigning and redefining my values as a professional.
I decided to initiate a new world of art that encapsulates all of me: the artist, the teacher, the designer, the chess player, the mad performance artist, the light follower, the warrior, and the activist: All of these roles are focused and intent on one single path, working towards deep healing and collective liberation.
In 2023, I co-founded Building New Bonds (BnewB) with my life partner of eighteen years, Mani Nilchiani, a multifaceted artist, musician, and technologist.
Together we bring a breath of fresh air to the workplace, transforming people’s experience of the place they spend the most time. We offer retreats interventions and custom programs for teams of various sizes. For example, one of our offerings is a sound and light immersive experience called Light Player, where participants are guided to engage with light instruments and use their voices to tune into the frequencies of light and each other and towards a collective harmony. We are excited to host our next in-person public event in New York City, called ‘Tuning In and Tuning Out,’ in September.
Our mission at BnewB is to bring the spirit of art to workplaces and help humans and organizations flourish together.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Looking back, the qualities and skills that have been the most impactful in my journey are:
Resourceful thinking
Prioritizing rest especially when I am busy and stressed
Building solid communities.
1. As an artist, I had to hone my resourcefulness with materials, space, time, and energy daily. Sometimes this means using the materials I have readily available for a project instead of immediately thinking about buying new ones or moving furniture around to use a corner of the living room to make space for building a sculpture, instead of paying extra studio rent.
My advice to those who would like to think more resourcefully in life is to let go of seeing the world through the lens of ‘more is better, I need to buy more … to be happy, to get where I want to.’
To become resourceful, one needs to cultivate an inner curiosity to see how they can make the most and best out of what is already available. For example, try probing yourself with questions like these:
• ‘ The fridge looks almost empty. Hmmm, I wonder if I have enough ingredients to cook one more meal instead of buying new groceries or ordering takeout? ‘
• ‘ I would have loved to be more artistic in life. Hmmm, I wonder if I already have sufficient time to do creative activities regularly instead of doom-scrolling on social media?’
The ‘I wonder’ question signals the brain to connect new dots and think creatively with what you already have. Having more money, time, resources or things does not always mean a successful satisfying life.
2. Prioritizing rest and being mindful of my energy level is another important one. This is especially crucial when I resist resting because I feel stressed and overburdened by a heavy workload. For example, I might have a deadline for an application due at midnight on a day when I have ten other tasks and errands to complete. At that moment, it feels counterintuitive to do anything but write or tackle everything on my to-do list. I pause and ask myself:
What if I forget my to-do list for thirty minutes during the day? This skill lies in resisting the urge to power through and instead taking a fifteen-minute nap or a 30-minute meditation to restore some energy. If I succeed in resting my mind and body, I will be rewarded with more hours of renewed energy and focus to do a better-quality application.
3. The last one, but certainly not least, is building community. The first step is finding my people—comrades, sisters, collaborators, and voyagers—the ones who count on me and whom I count on in times of hardship and joy. However, nurturing, prioritizing, and maintaining that community over time is a different challenge.
This skill lies in genuine care, hand-holding, and attention. Sometimes it requires one to surpass their individual needs to help organize things for others. It involves believing that reciprocity is not transactional—meaning you don’t help someone expecting an immediate return. Instead, it’s about trusting that one day in the quantum of space and time, the energy you invest in helping others will support you when you need it the most.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
Often, a fun plan with a friend or an inspiring adventure is canceled for reasons like this:
“I have to finish a project”, “I have a deadline,” or “Sorry, work has been intense and I’m just so tired.” Most people spend the majority of their time on the job. What are we pushing this hard for? How could we infuse our purpose into work so it’s not a burden on the soul?
It used to be that we worked to live, but nowadays we live to work.
Are you that friend who sends similar messages to cancel plans? Do you leave work feeling burnt out? Does your life have a monotonous routine, with every day feeling like the same color, taste, and energy? You or your colleagues might be our ideal clients. BnewB brings new life and playful energy to workplaces— the environments where we spend most of our time. We offer large and small workshops to support teams coming together, foster harmony and playful collaboration in the workplace, and help heal office cultures.
Our client can be anyone who works in a group, be it at a small or large startup, a technology company, a corporation of any size, a healthcare organization, a nonprofit, a union, a creative agency, or an educational institution.
Once the BnewB journey of centering care in work culture begins, through infusing playfulness, resourcefulness, and community building, the outcomes become apparent: increased effective productivity, enhanced mental well-being among team members, reduced stress, nurtured empathy, an elevated sense of curiosity and attention to detail, and revitalized relationships.
As we witness workplaces becoming increasingly harmonious through our work at BnewB, we believe this will seed large-scale change in the way we relate to each other and ourselves. This has become the most elaborate work of art in my career. As one of our Light Player participants described it:
“I left feeling lighter, with more love in my heart, and hope for humanity. The experience brought me closer to my consciousness and the world around me.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nooshinrostami.com
- Instagram: @adrawingsurface
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nooshinrostami/
- Other: www.bnewb.site
Instagram: @buildingnewbonds
Image Credits
Proflie picture : Katharina Poblotzki
1-Analema-lens1: Courtesy of the artist
2-Analema-lens2: Courtesy of the artist
3-Zamân: Courtesy of the artist
4-Alleyway to the prison’s Garden: Courtesy of the artist
5-Light-Player: Sheena Matheiken
6-As Far As There Was Water Was All It Was: Jimena Sarno
7-Un-there: Courtesy of the artist
8-Un-there: Jack Hyler
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
