video art Archives - Morehshin Allahyari

Morehshin Allahyari - In Mere Spaces All Things Are Side By Side I

October 17, 2014

In Mere Spaces All Things Are Side By Side I (2014)

In Mere Spaces All Things Are Side By Side explores the complex adoption and accessibility of the internet in the Global South. Rather than thinking about technology from a position of privilege, it focuses on the gap, failure, limitation, and the frustration of access to technology. This piece is inspired by my saved Yahoo chat histories from a 4 year long online relationship when I lived in Iran, but rather than delving into the relationship itself, it creates an imagined space between physical and virtual to connect the failure of the relationship to the failure of technology and communication.

Morehshin Allahyari – In Mere Spaces All Things Are Side By Side I

Morehshin Allahyari - In The Realm of Rare and Analogous Accidents

December 28, 2012

In The Realm of Rare and Analogous Accidents (2013)

Found footage from Gholam Jandarm (1972) – Iran + Rio bravo (1959)- United States

Side by Side; Searching for a relationship that defines the states of belonging; The space in the middle. Questioning the power of the image… the image that guides us. The image that lies.

“Something is of course always lost when we get to see only one side. It is for the exact same reason that one must have the courage to confess the pain of the coma-like contrast of life and cinema. In this scenario, somehow we must put it all together to see the big picture; While in the state of unconsciousness, we are stuck at the thin edge of a screen where two worlds, two countries, and two cities separate for the sake of it. I feel helpless standing in the middle. In this chain of accidents, in this battle of guns and bombs, in the pile of my notes, thoughts, and nostalgic memories of Texas and Tehran, the world lacks trust in common sense.”

(From the text in the video).

November 22, 2012

Re: Apologies to the many wonderful Iranians (2012)

Morehshin Allahyari – Re: Apologies to the many wonderful Iranians

Standing behind the windows; Unable to reach or to pass through. The past and present meeting in one spot; Places and objects slowly fragmenting, deforming, fading in and out, coming together, splitting apart; Witnessing things falling through…The blurry memories of my childhood from war, fusing into the same feelings of numbness and helplessness where I stand today…

Re: Apologies to the Many Wonderful Iranians is an installation that explores and combines personal memories of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) with the constant awareness of life filled with drumbeats of war against Iran and the intensified sanctions targeting the lives of the Iranian people. It is a response to the recent unethical and proud reports and discussions that praise sanctions and wars on Iran to stop the Iranian government’s nuclear activities; Rejecting and ignoring the results of sanctions on the lives of the ordinary people and their suffering; Forgetting the mentally and emotionally exhausted citizens, floating between political wars. Legitimatizing mass slaughter that sanctions accompany. Keeping the invisible war invisible without filling-in the gaps.

*In Summer of 2012, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times went to Iran and within his return to the U.S. in one of his reports named Pinched and Griping in Iran (June 2012) wrote:

“…with apologies to the many wonderful Iranians who showered me with hospitality, I favor sanctions because I don’t see any other way to pressure the regime on the nuclear issue or ease its grip on power. My takeaway is that sanctions are working pretty well.”

Morehshin Allahyari – Re: Apologies to the many wonderful Iranians

Photos by Derek Rankins.