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Once Being a What begins with objects that are physically present, yet inaccessible. The series draws on works from the Valkhof Museum’s collection, which are among the few artefacts that can be loosely linked to the artist’s cultural lineage. However, even this connection is obscured by vague and generalised classification. Mohammadi initially intended to bring these objects out of their vitrines and place them in the exhibition space, enabling them to regain a sense of presence, scale, and relationality. Nevertheless, this proved impossible. Institutional protocols and conservation concerns reinforced the boundaries between object and viewer.

In response, the artist turns to reconstruction, remaking the objects from glass, not as replicas, but as translations. This act becomes both a practical solution and a critical statement, revealing how institutions not only regulate the preservation of objects but also the terms through which they can be experienced. The resulting sculptures occupy an in-between state. Once embedded in daily life, ritual, or systems of knowledge, they are now devoid of function. Yet they are not entirely severed from them either. Suspended between artefact and artwork, utility and symbol, they carry within them both the memory of their origins and the conditions of their displacement.