… in my absolute silence …
Artist: Maryam Rashidi.
Installation at Watt Space Newcastle. 20thSep – 8thOct, 2006
There is a room which is mine, but which I don’t own. I’m sitting in it, thinking…
There is a bed which is mine, but which I don’t own. I’m lying on it, thinking…
There is a blanket which is mine, but which I don’t own. I’m under it, thinking…
The rest is ALL mine (completely mine!): the toys… and… my… absolute… silence…
Medium: Found objects, text
E-mailed note by Maryam:
"This exhibition deals with the notion of diaspora. But, unlike the previous installation in which I made the viewer experience a sense of 'displacement/emplacement' (displacing them from where/what they used to go to/see and emplacing them into a new structure or pattern), this time I am exploring diaspora more on a personal level. By this I don't necessarily mean 'my' personal experience, but 'a' personal diasporic experience. However, in the artist's statement, (again, unlike the previous one), I have not directly pointed to the underlying concept of diaspora. I have rather written a few simple lines. I am giving the audience the freedom to interpret and comprehend the words and the work as they like."
3 comments:
LOCAL SITES AND SIGHTINGS: MARYAM RASHIDI.
Maryam Rashidi came to the Central Coast of NSW from Iran, where she studied Materials Engineering (Ceramic Sciences) for three years at Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) in Tehran, and Graphics and Creative Design for Advertising simultaneously with Cavendish College, London, and Pardazeshgar Paya-Rayaneh Institution, Tehran.
She enrolled at the Ourimbah Campus of the University of Newcastle in 2004, transferring to the Callahan campus at the end of year two.
Exhibitions include:
1000 Small Boxes Exhibition, Kankaku Museum, Japan, 2005 (winner of the Museum Heart Prize)
F3Xit. Parliament House, Sydney, 2005.
Dawn Light International Art Symposium, performance collaboration with New Zealand artist John Lyall, Gosford Regional Gallery, 2005.
D.I.A.S.P.O.R.A Solo exhibition, Watt Space Newcastle, 2006.
Maryam is a participant in the current Reading Room Project (RRP:0) based in Gosford and is contributing to research for the Rugs of War project, ANU.
I managed to get up to Newcastle to see Maryam Rashidi’s installation, as I had seen the earlier DIASPORA installation, with the eggs, and wondered what she had hatched this time.
There was a curiously ambiguous tension I felt in this work; simultaneously both unease and comfort. The central focus – the metal bed frame, frames the experience, with its echoes of institutional oppression, refugee internment, ww2 concentration camps, Albanian orphanages, Guantanamo etc. - that feeling of the presence a dark history that you get with the large work by Jannis Kounellis at the AGNSW.
But the unintelligible (MY absolute silence) scrawled wall diary entries are like exits from cold and impersonal isolation. The lyrical loops and swoops of the Iranian Farsi script suggest escape; of inner life and hope. They are a calligraphic image of flight, which in the sunken space in the gallery, seems to rise up the walls towards the light.
I thought the earlier work at Watt Space cooler and more schematic. This installation is more personal and emotional, but avoids being overly revealing or indulgent.
Do those stuffed toys on the wire mattress all have names? I think they will be happy when this exhibition is finished, and I will be interested to see the next.
Dear Charles,
Thanks for visiting the gallery and writing such an interesting review of my exhibition!
I won't comment on anything that you have written, but I would like to answer the question you had asked at the end! You had asked whether each of those toys had a specific name... Not all of them do have names, but the important thing is that they are all mine! "COMPLETELY MINE"... The only one that actually does have a name is the biggest rabbit which is right at the back (which you probably can't see clearly)! His name is "Rupid Pinie"!! (if you email me at maryamrashidi77@yahoo.com, I will send you a closer image.)
I am sure all of my toys are looking forward to coming back to me and to get back on their shelve where they all belong... I hope that they are missing me, just as much as I am missing them!
Thanks again for your nice review!
Best,
Maryam.
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