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Sayeh Sarfaraz : Micropolitiques
Sayeh Sarfaraz brings to light the tensions between recent history and its possible visual narrative. She creates a personal inventory of protesters, figureheads, and fragments of events drawn from the wellspring of recent popular uprisings in the Middle-East and Iran. With them, she constructs an imaginary place that gives full scope to the political dimensions of the images.
Her characters comprise an alluring parade of ghosts, fools, rogues, and anonymous prisoners. Between dispersion and crystallization, this throng gives shape to disturbing scenes, strangely fixed in the apparent imbalances of power.
The magic occurs in the irreconcilability of these images that draw the eye toward both drama and play. Highly political motives intermingle with the fable to confound various levels of reading. The customary reference to the toy is obscured to give way to expressions of violence in the fragility of these simple forms. Together, these innocent and threatening motifs engender ambiguous images that forge a bond between the symbolic and the real.
The impertinent quality of the images eludes censorship. They only gain meaning when rearticulated with the real, thus facilitating the memory of history. Between child-like magic and the brutality of current events, these images challenge us to fight against our docile loss of critical perspective.
Claire Moeder
Many thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support on this project.
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