A mannequin is clad in a dress, the pattern of which is composed of silk-screen images of incidents, events, people and places which have been profoundly influential in my life within the last 22 years since my return to Iran after 7 years abroad (1974 -1981). These images have been selected from family albums plus those printed in the daily newspapers of my country; parents' wedding, childhood memorial photos, family get-togethers, the Iran-Iraq war, a friend who participated in the war, public street hangings of criminals convicted of murder and rape, Ashura religious ritual, the city of Bam, before and after the earthquake, etc... .
The mannequin is installed on top of a rotating pedestal which is covered by a plexiglass enclosure. The top section of the enclosure - from the neck of the mannequin to the tip of it's head - is covered from inside by means of tracking paper through which the viewer can observe shadows of fluttering Monarch butterflies.
The mannequin is adorned with a neckless composed of objects such as portraits of Islamic religious icons, ceramic life size cockroaches and birds, rosary beads of different colours, a small ceramic sculpture of a baby hanging upside down from the feet painted in white, tide-up shards of colourful cloths, lose threads, collected and found objects, etc... . Lying On the floor, next to this installation one observes a sculpture of a black crow, a small music box, a pair of old trinket rings once owned by my late grandmother kept as a lucky charm, a cattle bell and a staff topped with a horned image.
A performance was acted at the opening by myself clad in the same dress as the mannequin, wearing the neckeless, the trinket rings on one hand and the staff in the other. I started on a sombre walk, in complete silence, from my hotel room into the streets and alleys of Yerevan on to the National Gallery where the exhibition took place stopping by the installation where I left the trinket rings and the staff on the floor next to the crow and the music box. The performance ended in silence as I left the museum.
There is a 10 minute film of my perfromance acted out in Tehran which was shown throughout the exhibition.
A 10 minutes video of the performance in Yerevan is now complementing the piece if to be shown in future venues.
Photo: Ramin Haerizadeh
Do we wear our life?
As with clothes, items of our life have different roles to play.
Some we tire of quickly, discarding them.
Others are worn out, out of fashion; we seek new ones.
Then there are those from a past which we perpetually carry, flaunted in a self-indulgent manner. Someone else's may strike a pang of admiration, jealousy even.
Some are used to cover seemingly undesirable aspects of ourselves.
Likewise there are others which themselves are best well hidden in the recesses of memory.
As it is said: 'clothes beget the man'.
Copyright © 2005 bitaworks.com All rights reserved