STILL LIVES & SELECTED ACTS June 21-26, 2013, at Dastan’s Basement, Tehran

Curated by Sohrab Kashani and Sandra Skurvida

This video exhibition reflects on the present state of being in Iran. It is ambivalent, as voices of hopeful anticipation alternate with implicit societal tensions and a deep-seated stagnation. Still Lives & Selected Acts conveys social affects of the recent past and glimmers of near future via recourses to nature and inner states—as in “still life,” depicting mostly inanimate subject-matter and commonplace objects. Substitution of facts with their signifying objects allows recognizance and negotiation of the meanings of acts affecting our lives.

Mehraneh Atashi, Study in V/2, 2013, 0:57
Farid Jafari Samarghandi, My Boat Is Broken, 2009, 02:27
Samira Eskandarfar, Happy Birthday, 2009, 9:24
Farhad Kalantary, Underline, 2012, 03:24
Simin Keramati, Music & Flower, 2011, 08:13
Nosrat Nosratian, Fall, 2009, 06:56
Jinoos Taghizadeh and Behzad Nejadghanbar, Numbers, 14 June 2012

Image courtesy Mehraneh Atashi (video still)