OF SHIFTING SHADOWS

Texte anglais

An exploration in the non-linear movement of memory, "Of Shifting Shadows" speaks to the fragmentary effects of traumatic social events on individual subjectivities and the agency of the individuals in recreating their lives. The work takes its impetus from the 1979 Iranian Revolution, revisited after 20 years through a personal journey in memory and history.

Four fictional women - Bita, Mina, Goli and the Author, deliver the narrative - which unfolds in parallel visual, spoken and written texts. They 'speak' of their experiences of the Revolution and their consequent life in exile.

At one level, the work revisits the 1979 Revolution - one of the most significant popular uprisings in the last quarter of the twentieth century with drastic effects on the international politics and dynamics of power - to selectively chronicle and reflect on the expressions of a politicized public. At another level, it attempts to establish a public voice for the marginalized secular forces seeking freedom, specifically for women, who were the first and primary target of post-revolutionary oppression and whose voices were muted in the narration of history and national identity.

Although the characters narrate the forgotten or forbidden tales of the revolt, they do not suffice with the past for their vision inevitably passes through their exiled present.

Juxtaposing the memory of the past/there with the experience of the present/here, they weave a multi-directional critical text that allows the complexity and shifting meanings of exilic existence to emerge and recreates personal stories rarely heard by the Western audiences, all the while staying clear from the superficial sensationalism that subverts many such public acts.

The interactive strategy places the viewer in the position of witness and accomplice to move the work beyond abstract, disembodied and propagandistic pondering and, thus, invoke intimate experience and a sense of responsibility mediated by artistic expression.