An important part of the way a culture is suppressed and the minds of its people are controlled happens through language. It can be that a power institution tries to plant an idea in the minds of citizens through manipulation of language, and by discrediting words or establishing one particular language as the official one. This is a tool that takes away the freedom in thinking. Where language is limited, the mind is limited.
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abstract
The exposition Scented Rooms aims to be a form of resistance that finds itself in poetry and politics, poetic imagery, re-thinking censored archives, existential reflections on photography and cinema, and dance. At the very core of the research is an important historic icon in Iran; The country's oldest theater which was burnt down by extremists during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, closed forever and has decayed over time. The burning of this theater, along with many others, was the starting point for imposing restrictions on art and culture. The research departs contextually from the efforts of the Islamic government to control civil society. It is a reaction to a history of imposing a specific language discourse and discarding elements that represent a non-religious view, visual changes in the urban space and limiting access to specific types of information that refer to citizens’ collective memory. Giving agency to this theater, the research aims to revive the collective and public memory of a society, being the voice of those that have been silenced for a long time.
- Shauheen Daneshfar - Scented Rooms - 2023
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