Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Affrassiabi
Plate It With Silver. 2015
Video, 33 min
Por encargo de Sharjah Art Foundation
A video set along the northern and southern shores of the Strait of Hormuz referencing peripheral relations to the waters from minor economic ventures like smuggling to possession-cult practices throughout the region. In the latter, individuals are believed to become possessed by ‘winds’, another name for imperceptible spirits, which circulate between different parts of the region and across the seas from India and East Africa along historic trade routes.
Central to the work is the rattan stick used in possession rituals. The stick functions as a device for negotiating between the worlds of humans and spirits, the body and the wind, material and immaterial exchange. Plate It with Silver includes the process of plating a rattan stick at a silversmith workshop in Sharjah, UAE. (Sharjah Art Foundation)
© Still: Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Affrassiabi
Cortesía 1a Bienal de Asia &
5a Trienal de Guangzhou,
Museo de Arte de Guangdong
11 diciembre 2015 - 10 abril 2016, Guangzhou, China. Tema: Asia Time. Organizador: Museo de Arte de Guangdong. Presidente: Luo Yiping. Curadores en jefe: Henk Slager, Zhang Qing. Curadores: Kim Hong-Hee, Ute Meta Bauer, Sarah Wilson, Sun Ge.