Calvino: Beyond The Visible
Ahmed Ben Nessib, Aymen Mbarki, Kamal Zakour, Othman Selmi, Seif Eddine Nechi, Sonia Ben Selem
Curated by Abir Gasmi and Anna Gabai

Organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of Tunis as part of the Calvino In Tunis Series, October 17 – November 30, 2023; Millefeuilles Bookstore, La Marsa.

How can one interpret a story or an idea through images?

At first, the task seems daunting and incongruous. Yet, that is precisely what we asked six artists to do: select a novel by Italo Calvino and translate it into images, even if they were unfamiliar with his work. They had to discover the author, read him, digest him, dream about him, make his stories their own, explore the hidden corners of his oeuvre, and finally, like alchemists, transform his words into drawings.

It is in the corners and crevices of language, in the spaces in between, where a hidden, underground narrative can be found—one that words cannot fully capture, but which images freeze, like a drop of water in the heart of winter. Calvino’s stories are full of these hidden spaces. His books are half-open doors leading to entire universes, and his sentences do what writing does best: they suggest, indicate, and conceal to reveal. His subtly, light, playful, and evocative prose transforms each reader into an imaginary illustrator.

But more than merely illustrating the text, the images in this exhibition suggest what the written word cannot say or manifest. They go beyond the visible. The result is an enchanting and kaleidoscopic exhibition where refined blacks and whites intertwine with vibrant colors, shadows dance with glimmers of light, and tiny creatures find the space we never knew they needed.

These illustrations make us feel at home by drawing on familiar motifs and stories while illuminating new dimensions of Calvino’s prose that we had not previously considered. They transcend their role as mere complements to the text, allowing us to discover a microcosm—that of each artist—whose imagination draws from the writer’s nuances yet maintains its unique substance. The works combine two creative realities that overlap and blend surprisingly, uniting opposites in the same space: classicism and experimentation, light and darkness, color and black and white…

Like the Ligurian author, these artists have embarked on a journey through worlds and eras, using their talents to allow us to experience an aesthetic encounter that transcends the every day without abandoning it. Instead, it enriches it, making it more lovable and comprehensible.

While walking through a Ligurian forest, for a brief moment, it seemed to me as though I saw Cosimo, the Baron in the Trees, dashing among the branches of oaks and chestnuts. Calvino had an extensive knowledge of plants and nature and a profound love for his Ligurian mountains, which rise steeply above the Mediterranean. He could have boarded a ship in Genoa and reached Tunis, moving from one city of alleyways and palaces to another, rich in narrow streets and grand buildings. I can picture him pausing along the avenues of Tunis to observe which trees grow there, taking a moment to cool himself beneath their canopy. During such a walk, he might have dreamed up a new invisible city—a welcoming city colored by pink and orange bougainvillea.

In preparing for the exhibition, I read the books the artists had chosen as their sources of inspiration. At times, when I came across particularly detailed passages, I wondered how these might influence the illustrations and whether those phrases would be perceived as too restrictive. Predictably, I was proven wrong. Each artist interpreted the works through their own unique perspective.

My curiosity to see the paintings grew weekly: What would I recognize? How would the landscape be transformed?

We can recognize Agilulfo, the Nonexistent Knight, in Ahmed Ben Nessib’s work. He walks pensively among bats and lampposts, sleepless and full of existential doubts like Nat King Cole swearing that it will be forever when he falls in love. It is a nocturnal scene set in the dark, deserted streets of a city, which bears traces of daytime activity like the camp in the novel. Yet, the protagonist finds a way to carve out a space for meditation.

The empty armor of the Nonexistent Knight as a metaphor for artificial intelligence—a double-edged sword of our creativity—is perfectly captured in the illustrations by Seif Eddine Nechi. Here, Agilulfo is not the sole protagonist; his squire, Gurdulù, also has a place. The artist thus manages to give form to the dichotomy at the heart of this novel: the personification of rules and discipline in contrast with instinct. The knight’s colorful plume stands out amidst the blue and white that characterize these digital illustrations and echoes the colored pencil drawing that portrays the four main characters as puppets reminiscent of Sicilian marionettes. Here, the rational Agilulfo, the impulsive Rambaldo, the passionate Bradamante, and the exuberant Gurdulù regain a classical physicality that would have been understood even at Charlemagne’s court.

Italian folk tales come to life thanks to the vibrant colors and whimsical creatures that inhabit Sonia Bensalem’s works. In one illustration, a young man sleeps alongside a dog and a cat. In the background, the phrase “fairy tales are true…” hints at what they are dreaming. In another beautiful panel, creatures of the sky and sea gather around a giant resting beneath a large tree: an octopus, many small birds, a few donkeys, queens, and cottages—so many loving details drawn with the same care as the characters in the third illustration, where they tidy another giant’s beard using rakes.

Thanks to Aymen Mbarki’s flowing lines, the characters from the complex novel If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveler become perfectly comprehensible. A play of volumes characterizes the illustrations: the delicate features of people engrossed in reading are framed by bolder lines that guide the eye across the three illustrations. In this work, aged paper creates a welcoming environment for the black ink, giving it even greater depth.

Othman Selmi brings us into the treetops to chase after Cosimo, the rebellious baron who will never descend again. Selmi gives the work a contemporary touch, choosing almost pastel-like colors and capturing all the love the protagonist feels—for freedom, his friends, Viola, and the forest. In the illustration where young Cosimo reads to the bandit Gian dei Brughi, all these themes come together: the young baron, with an open book, sits on the back of the bandit, crammed into a cell too small for him. A blossoming tattoo adorns the bandit’s giant arm, and small trees grow at his feet.

Then, Abir Gasmi and Kamal Zakkour created the three new invisible cities, suspended between shadows and sea breezes. Fiorita, Spaventata, and Pretenziosa are projections of the soul drawn in charcoal on paper. Many of us would love to live forever in Fiorita. Still, we know all too well that without knowing Spaventata and Pretenziosa, we would never appreciate the value of the city where “restless souls find peace.”

The search for the proper nails to support so much beauty led me to a small hardware store, where an attentive and precise apprentice helped me. We chose small, dark nails—discreet yet intense—and hammered them into the white walls, freshly repainted for the occasion. There was a dance of the paintings until one evening, after sunset, everything fell into place, and we left, satisfied. We hung books on the walls to share the stories we had loved with all those who came to visit.

Once everything is in place, there is that slightly dizzying moment when you look around and remember the empty room when everything was still packed against the walls. Yes, something could still be changed. No, everything will stay just as it is.

Calvino would have liked it.

The catalouge “Calvino a Tunisi,” edited by Chiara Comito, will be published by Mesogea at the end of November 2024.

_Abir Gasmi and Anna Gabai

Dialogues is a place for being vocal. Here, authors and artists get together in conversations, interviews, essays and experimental forms of writing. We aim to create a space of exchange, where the published results are often the most visible manifestations of relations, friendships and collaborations built around Sumac Space. SUBSCRIBE NOW TO STAY CURRENT.

The post Calvino: Beyond The Visible—Abir Gasmi and Anna Gabai appeared first on Sumac Space.

Zahra Zeinali’s works offer a mesmerizing journey into the realm of dreams and imagination. Through the skillful use of dim and dark acrylic colors, they craft an ambiance that feels simultaneously enchanting and mysterious. Their unique style, featuring little girls encircled by an array of figures ranging from dolls and toys to animals, clowns, newborns, and even monsters, evokes a dreamlike fantasy that captivates the viewer’s senses.

With every brush stroke, the artist creates a delicate balance between innocence and eerie beauty. The incorporation of various elements within a single composition not only showcases their technical prowess but also speaks to a deeper narrative that lies within each piece. This juxtaposition of the familiar and the uncanny encourages contemplation and invites the audience to explore the complex emotions stirred by their art. One of the most striking aspects of Zeinali’s work is her exceptional use of color. Whether it is bold and vibrant hues that dominate her pieces in other periods of her works or the subtle and subdued shades she employs to convey mood in her latest series, her mastery of color theory is evident. Each stroke of her brush seems deliberate and purposeful, resulting in a harmonious interplay of tones that breathe life into her subjects.

Intricacy and attention to detail are hallmarks of Zahra Zeinali’s artworks. Upon closer examination, viewers are treated to a wealth of intricate patterns, textures, and hidden elements that enrich the visual experience. This attention to detail invites the observer to take their time exploring each piece, discovering new nuances with each gaze. The artist’s choice of subjects, especially the portrayal of little girls, adds an air of nostalgia and vulnerability to the artwork. The figures seem to be caught in a liminal space where reality and fantasy intertwine, blurring the lines between the conscious and subconscious. This lends a thought-provoking quality to their pieces, prompting viewers to reflect on the intricacies of childhood, memory, and the ethereal nature of dreams.

Zeinali’s ability to infuse her art with emotion is a testament to her skill as a storyteller. Her pieces are tales of longing, joy, and introspection, drawing viewers into a narrative that’s as captivating as it is relatable. This talent for evoking feelings is what truly makes her artworks come alive, transforming them from mere visual spectacles into windows to the soul.

However, what truly sets Zeinali apart is her unique perspective on both memory and the human experience. Her pieces often exude a sense of nostalgia, invoking memories and emotions long forgotten. Whether she is capturing the delicate beauty of a fading object or the quiet contemplation of a solitary figure, there’s an underlying depth to her work that resonates with audiences on a profound level.

In conclusion, her artworks are a tour de force of creativity and expression. With a keen eye for color, an unwavering dedication to detail, and an innate ability to tap into the human experience, she invites us on a journey. Zeinali’s pieces are not just static images; they’re living, breathing stories that beckon viewers to immerse themselves in her world of imagination and emotion. The artist’s masterful execution of acrylic techniques, combined with their thematic exploration of dreamscapes filled with figures and objects, forms a body of visually striking and emotionally evocative work. Their ability to conjure a sense of wonder while delving into the enigmatic corners of the mind is a testament to their artistic prowess, making their portfolio a must-see for those seeking to experience art that transcends conventional boundaries.

_ Hamidreza Karami
August 8, 2023

Hamidreza Karami (curator, researcher, art consultant, translator, writer, and visual artist), studied Visual Arts & Photography (B.A.) at the Faculty of Art and Architecture of Azad University, Tehran (2002-2006) and Philosophy of Art (M.A.) at the Tehran University of Art (2008-2010). He started his artistic activity in the fields of photography, video art, drawing, painting, and installation since the 2000s, and has exhibited his works in many individual and group exhibitions in Iran and abroad. Organizing and curating more than dozens of exhibitions of the works of modern and contemporary Iranian artists inside and outside the country is the result of his work as a curator during these years. He has also researched, translated and authored dozens of articles in the field of art. He collaborated in the compilation of a three-volume Encyclopedia of Art in Farsi (under the supervision of Ruyin Pakbaz at Farhang-e Moaser Publications), and has been a guest lecturer at the Tehran University of Arts since the early 2010s. Authoring the book Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art of Iran, Turkey and the Arab World is his current project, which will be published by Contemporary Art Publications in collaboration with Lajevardi Foundation.

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A:D: Curatorial hosted Zahra Zeinali’s exhibition au-delà from July 15^th to August 30^th. The exhibition brings together a series of Zahra Zeinali’s paintings and installations from the last three years for her first solo show in Berlin, Germany. 

In au-delà, Zahra Zeinali uses the prism of her experiences as an Iranian immigrant to examine themes of exile, displacement, and trauma. She employs this to explore the sensations and memories of loneliness and vulnerability, expressing the agony and concussion of being uprooted and forced to navigate an unknown backdrop. In the following text, we extend an invitation to read about four series featured in the exhibition: Perdu (2020), REM (2021), Elle ferma les yeux (2021), and Adaptation (2021-2022).

The Perdu series (2020) marked a significant turning point in Zahra Zeinali’s life. After spending seven years in Paris, she returned to Iran with a strong desire to rediscover a sense of belonging that had eluded her in her adopted country. However, upon her return, she found that both she and her homeland had undergone significant changes, leading to a profound disconnection between them. This resulted in a feeling of rootlessness, characterized by loneliness, emptiness, and uncertainty.

During this period of self-exploration, Zeinali focused on questions of identity, reflecting on her past and present self, while also delving into her inner world with great curiosity. This introspective journey revealed a hidden realm of depth and complexity that, unknown to her, had silently accompanied her throughout her life. In her paintings from this phase, the use of color was notably limited to white, red, and black hues. She believed that vibrant colors represented the external world, whereas the inner world required a more muted representation.

The narrative of her work revolved around a central figure, a young girl, surrounded by personal artifacts such as vintage dolls from Parisian second-hand stores, self-made masks, fabrics, and theater-inspired puppets. These elements were arranged in front of a dimly lit backdrop, evoking a theatrical stage where the unfolding drama takes place in an obscure black box, hidden from the audience’s full view. This symbolic approach conveyed the idea that human perception provides only a partial glimpse of truth, much like witnessing only a fraction of events backstage. Zeinali assumed the role of a theatrical director, skillfully orchestrating these representations on the stage to manifest various states of mind and inner emotions – a manifestation rooted in a cognitive perspective.

The series REM (2021) and Elle ferma les yeux (2021-2022) continued to focus on the inner world she had discovered – a realm characterized by contradictions, fears, and dreams, akin to the enigmatic nature of dreams or nightmares. Zeinali translated this peculiar inner world onto canvas, naming the collection “PARADOX SLEEP (REM)”. This denotes the state between deep slumber and wakefulness, where reality and imagination converge, echoing the essence of her paintings.

The paintings in these series featured doll-like figures often shrouded in shadows, resembling theatrical scenes. The overall outlook towards the world and reality was somewhat pessimistic and bitter. The backgrounds of the paintings avoided depicting specific locations or spaces, emphasizing the emergence of the characters from darkness, like figures on a theater stage. Zeinali’s choice of colors remained limited, with a focus on using acrylic as her medium, resulting in expressive and emotionally intense paintings from subjective perspectives.

The series Elle ferma les yeux (2021) was influenced by a deeply unfortunate event in her life toward the end of 2021, the impact of which resounded until late 2022. During this period, new colors, such as blue and yellow, were introduced, imbued with symbolic meanings. As a result, the artworks gradually incorporated surrealistic procedure, prompting contemplation on death and the intricacies of the human subconscious. This phase revealed Zahra Zeinali’s newfound sense of independence in her expression.

The essence of each entity’s existence, as perceived by the artist, holds a bitter and disconcerting truth. As she delved deeper into exploration, more unsettling facets of this truth surfaced. This newfound understanding of the world significantly influenced the artist’s actions and mindset, leading her to question the very meaning and purpose of life.She grapples with the daunting task of navigating life in a peculiar and fearsome world. This internal struggle gave rise to the Adaptation (2021-2022) series. In these artworks, subtle shifts in the main characters’ dispositions are portrayed, reflecting a sense of acceptance of one’s circumstances and a confrontation with enigmatic and unsettling realities. This phase is deemed crucial and challenging, as it supports reconciliation of the artist’s relationship with both herself and the world.

Technically, Zahra Zenali embarks on a journey into unknown territory by using relatively large canvases for the first time. The characters in the artworks move from unfamiliar spaces to more familiar places that remind us of untouched nature. The artworks show the coexistence of unique entities and characters, blending together harmoniously in a single frame, without any resistance or conflict. Her subsequent works, while not explicitly labeled as part of the Adaptation series, continue to be strongly influenced by her explorations during this period.

_ In conversation with Zahra Zeinali

Zahra Zeinali (b. 1975) completed her bachelor’s degree in painting from the Islamic Azad University of Tehran and worked as an art instructor for fifteen years. She developed an interest in photography and studied analog photography at the House of Iranian Photographers. In 2012, Zahra relocated to Paris to continue her artistic journey as a painter. Later, in 2022, she completed her studies at the EFET Photographie École. This milestone prompted her to explore merging the two techniques in her recent works. Additionally, she commenced her role as an art teacher for children and young students at Le Cercle des Arts in 2022, allowing her to tap into the realm of childhood inspiration.  Zeinali has participated in several groups and solo exhibitions, including the recent Le Pays des Merveilles, Le Monde Invisible at Galerie Claire Corcia, and Alerte Rouge at Galerie Linda Farrell, Femme Vie Liberté at Galerie Sahar K. Boluki, Artcité à Fontenay, Comparaison au Grand Palais Éphémère, and Figuration Critique à Salon de Dessin Paris, among others.

A:D: Curatorial runs by two young curators from the USA and Ukraine, Christy Woody and Maria Isserlis, the mission of the space is to focus on creating a platform for today’s innovative artists to be heard in a non-commercial environment. Inviting artists from around the world, we aim to keep the cultural bridges open for collaborations, exchanges, and the development of new works. Through young, vibrant voices in the current art and music scene, we would like to thoughtfully reflect on the current political, social and environmental climate and progress with a successful example of cooperation in the field of art and culture in Berlin.

The post Zahra Zeinali. au-delà—In Conversation with Davood Madadpoor appeared first on Sumac Space.

In conjunction with the exhibition The Tellers, Villa Romana hosted a one-day symposium on Saturday, 19 March 2022, starting at 11 am. The symposium aimed to propose and discuss key points of the exhibition through contributions by Nat Muller (Independent curator, writer, and academic), and Santiago Zabala (Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain), followed by a public discussion and concluded with a lecture-performance by Mohamed Abdelkarim.

Listen to recorded audio on Radio Papesse by clicking here.

Programme

11:00
Welcome by Angelika Stepken, director of Villa Romana
Davood Madadpoor, Introduction to the platform Sumac Space

11:15
Katharina Ehrl, Introduction to the symposium

11:30 [Cancelled]
Raffaella Baccolini, Memory, Language, and Storytelling as Resistance.

Baccolini’s contribution will analyze the role and importance of language, communication, storytelling, and memory as forms of resistance. Classical, traditional dystopia often employs the convention of a rediscovered book from the past as one of the tools that awaken the dystopian protagonist(s). By looking at how contemporary critical dystopias have renewed and updated the convention of the forbidden book, she will analyze the importance of language and storytelling – and their link with communication, memory, and negotiation – not only as a means of helping the protagonists survive but also as a way of withstanding the dystopian world. Language, its recovery, and its use represent the need to strive for a difficult, complex resistance that often starts from the acceptance of a negotiated (inter)dependence. In the present climate of racism and hatred, which manifests itself through the dehumanizing policies that black people, migrants, and refugees face throughout the world today, these works offer a timely reflection on literacy and negotiation as tools of resistance. They are also what is necessary to maintain hope even in extreme conditions of oppression.

12:30
Santiago Zabala, Where is the Future? Warnings through Art

Philosophy is a warning, that is, a request to become involved in signs that concern our future. These signs can refer to our existence, environment, or even politics. The problem is that, contrary to predictions, warnings are weak, vague, and unclear concepts (in the form of an announcement) that are often ignored. This is probably why they are frequently discarded as useless or insignificant – much like environmentalists, philosophers, and artists – when in fact they are vital. Unlike an objective representation in the mind, warnings can be understood only through interpretation, that is, an involvement that concerns our existence. Recent philosophies of animals, plants, and insects are branches of this philosophy since they also warn us of specific issues that we ignore such as biodiversity loss or climate change. What often emerges in great art, as well as in other realms of human practice, is not a representation of beauty but rather the disclosure of an event that is invisible to our aesthetic senses, intellectual skills, and cultural interests. Today art often works better than scientific announcements as a way to reveal warnings. This is not an effect merely of the artists’ ability to create beauty, but rather of the intensity and depth of their works. Documentary photographs of the ongoing ice caps melting, for example, can be truthful but are rarely as powerful as the works of art that address this emergency. When art addresses our warnings, the future reveals itself.

14:30
Nat Muller, Futuring is a Verb: Looking for Possibility through Ruins in Contemporary Art from the Middle East

This presentation puts two premises to the test by drawing on the work of contemporary artists from the Middle East including: Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour, Lebanese artists and filmmakers Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri, and Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari. Firstly, it asks whether ruins can be considered as motifs of futurity rather than being markers of decay and entities locked in the past. Secondly, it asks what type of speculative images, imaginaries, and political positions are required to unlock this potential and see the future through the wreckage. How does the extension of the ruin’s temporality in a forward-looking way change its meaning, and what kind of social dreaming can be tied into it? What novel possibilities does such an approach offer historically, politically, and artistically?

16:00
Public discussion moderated by Nat Muller

Lecturers’ Bios

Raffaella Baccolini teaches Gender Studies and American and British Literature at the University of Bologna, Forlì Campus. She has published numerous articles on women’s writing, dystopia and science fiction, trauma and memory, modernism, and young adult literature. She has edited several volumes, including Transgressive Utopianism: Essays in Honor of Lucy Sargisson (with Lyman Tower Sargent, 2021), Utopia, Method, Vision: The Use Value of Social Dreaming (also with Tom Moylan, 2007) and Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination (with Tom Moylan, 2003). She is currently working on kindness, solidarity, and feminist education as utopian, political acts.

Santiago Zabala is ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He is the author of many books, including Being at Large: Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) and Why Only Art Can Save Us: Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency (Columbia University Press, 2017). His opinion articles have appeared in The New York Times, Al-Jazeera, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as other international media.

Nat Muller is an independent curator and writer with expertise in contemporary art from the Middle East. She is a regular contributor to international art publications such as Ocula and Hyperallergic and has edited a variety of monographs on artists including Walid Siti (Kehrer Verlag, 2020), Nancy Atakan’s Passing On (Kehrer Verlag, 2016), and Sadik Kwaish Alfraji (Schilt Publishing, 2015). She has curated video and film screenings for Rotterdam’s International Film Festival (NL), Norwegian Short Film Festival (NO), International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (DE), and Video D.U.M.B.O (USA), among others. Recent exhibition projects include the Danish Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), featuring Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour and the group show Trembling Landscapes: Between Reality and Fiction at Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum (2020). She is completing an AHRC-funded PhD at Birmingham City University on science fiction in contemporary art from the Middle East.

Video: Giulia Lenzi

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The exhibition Dear Fractured Stones evokes an image similar to the one drawn in Mehdi Akhavan Sales’s poem, “Katibeh” (Inscription), a poem telling the story of a group of people chained together on a cursed moonlit night. Similar to the characters of the poem but with looser and lighter chains, the artists presented in this exhibition work together to “turn” the stone. And as they “turn” their inscriptions they seek to reveal the secrets of that which is unsaid. But in this process of “turning” the stone over hours and days – not moments and minutes – they find themselves silent in shock, where their main action is that of remembering. The artists all look back and remember, but stone neither remembers nor forgets; instead, it continues to collect and to record and to carry the burden which it then passes down.

Stone as a material is comprised of mineral bonds; in its essence it is becoming rather than being, and this becoming is a process occurring over time with changes and observations. It is as if stone records its observations in layers, “turning” itself into an archive of the known even as it is an archive of a selection of bodily sediments. The stone takes events in and then accumulates their traces in the style of a documentary. It is a thing of the past with its historicity; however, time never stops within it but rather the stone encompasses the dialectic between the past and the present. Indeed, it is for this very reason that stone needs to be cut to be read. When a stone is broken, it cannot be remedied or mended, and in this sense, the narratives within are unveiled and disseminated immediately. At this moment, the untold is revealed. From this point on, the rigid reports of the past are not only divulged but also precarious. Another account is added to the memory of the past, but then it is cast away until it will become someone else’s concern one day. In this manner, Baharak Omidfard builds, through the nine artistic interpretations of this material stone, an intertextual network in the exhibition “Dear Fractured Stones”. In this collection, Omidfard addresses not only stone, but broken stones, stones which have been cast away and scattered, separated into pieces of an older body. Here, the stone which is normally used to break is now itself broken. In this sense, a piece of stone is like a material that finds a new nature and “transforms” into the agent of a unique narrative in a different form and medium; yet, one which is still connected with other narratives. 

Throughout the history of art, stone has always found a new shape through both the process of being carved and through the removal of excessive parts, an act which diverts attention from the material to the form. In subsequent art forms which replaced the work with the idea, stone could be then present in its natural form. Nowadays, meaning is created not only through acts of reduction, but also, sometimes, through the addition of another material, or at other times, through the altering of the background. This means that the stone itself matters, and it is no longer simply a material subservient to other content. This was the moment when stone became a historical-archival material. In contrast to its physical nature, this hard material is actually fluid and flowing when faced with history and the past; at times welcoming effacement yet always prepared to be refreshed and renewed. Thus, the artist’s activism in “Dear Fractured Stones” casts doubt on and questions official reports through the use of this very quality contained in the stone. Indeed, the significance of this exhibition is that the artworks – regardless of their past contexts and presentations – remind us of the possibility of reading unreliable texts and establishing new layers, adding to the stone’s archival state. In this exhibition, the artists seek to liberate reality from the dominance of the familiar – and sometimes manipulated – historical and official reports. 

The archive of a stone is when nature, earth, and geography bond with humans and historical events in such a way, that through the mediation of one, another becomes available. Using nine different approaches, the nine artists in this exhibition, linked through one history and geography – yet nevertheless in different parts of the world – present nine different narratives. The narratives of the artists, whether they are in Iran or not, are rooted in their memories of and their lived experiences in Iran, and ultimately, in their concerns about Iran. The works stand together through a common characteristic: the archival and sociopolitical state of stone located in this specific geography of Iran. Disengaged from power, stone is able to narrate social reports and reflect political affairs, not from the view of the powerful, nor from the annals of official accounts, but from the perspective of the people. In this way, the stone is on the people’s side and stands with them at night when “moonlight pours damnation upon us”. The works in this collection place stone in a position that symbolizes the gathered collective social energy that has to be released and freed. With the intervention of art, stone enters into the sociopolitical discourse without departing from its natural essence. 

Broken stones — whether they be as large as rocks, as small as pebbles, or perhaps even reduced to dust; whether located in the hands of one or upon the grave of another; whether valued and worn as part of a ring, or shaped for the conducting of local traditions, or even used to designate or destroy property lines — are, as historical observers, always ready to testify. Stones are impartial observers of events, of resistances, of dethronings, and of inaugurations. Since they are prone to gradual erosion, the results of their observations always need to be recorded by someone. Indeed, every time a new event adds a new layer to this archive, someone is required to “turn” the stone over. When people of vision “turn” the stone, they do so by annotating the historical inscriptions and not by seeking to develop a resplendent canon. They shape a metaphorical network of freed narratives just like the eternal “turning over” of the inscription in Akhavan Sales’s “Katibeh”: 

He shall know my secret 
who turns me over!

¹ Allusion to a line in Mehdi Akhavan Sales’s “Katibeh” (Inscription): “And we remained silent”.
Mehdi Akhavan Sales (1929–1990) was an Iranian poet whose works deal with historical, social, and political themes using an epic tone and are indebted to classic Persian poetry. In 1961, Akhavan composed “Katibeh” (Inscription), which refers to the dominant social and political oppression at the time. The poem can be summarized as follows: A group of people are in chains in a place like a mountain. A voice directs their attention to read a secret on a nearby inscription. However, the group endures the situation in silence and passivity until a moonlit night when they cannot endure it any more. One of them, whose chain is loose, climbs up to the inscription and reads: He shall know my secret who turns me over! Struggling painfully, the group then works together to turn the stone. Again, one of them with a lighter chain climbs up and reads in surprise after taking his time:
“He shall know my secret
who turns me over!”

Dialogues is a place for being vocal. Here, authors and artists get together in conversations, interviews, essays and experimental forms of writing. We aim to create a space of exchange, where the published results are often the most visible manifestations of relations, friendships and collaborations built around Sumac Space. SUBSCRIBE NOW TO STAY CURRENT.

The post And We Remain Silent for a While—Akram Ahmadi Tavana appeared first on Sumac Space.

On Ongoing is a series of conversations that took place in conjunction with the first three exhibitions Present Continuous, Past Continuous, and Present Imperfect. Sumac Space brought the artists together in new constellations and elaborated on their connection to the core questions addressed in these digital exhibitions.

What connects the works in the three exhibitions is an artistic practice that marks a tension by interrogating and recasting everyday objects and events to draw out their relationships to contemporary experience in a landscape of successive social and political change. Apart from the imminent need to consider the historical context out of which this current state of affairs has emerged, the chosen works reflect on contemporaneity as a concept that captures the frictions of the present.

The post On Ongoing–A Series of Five Artist Conversations [Video Recordings] appeared first on Sumac Space.