A Look at the "Rest" Show by Sepideh Zamani

Original text in Farsi by Abel Hartouni

Translated to English by Sara Faezypour

From 26 November to 17 December 2021, Sepideh Zamani showcased an installation of her works at Parallel Circuit.

This installation is the continuation of a project she started five years ago, directly referring to her first solo show, called "Interview", hosted by the Electric Room of  Dastan Outside Projects. Zamani was born in 1996 in Tehran. She graduated from the Art University of Tehran in 2008, majoring in sculpture, and "Rest" is her second solo show in Tehran. In short, Sepideh Zamani's works comprise a wide range of media and, while being witty, demonstrate a highly technical and intelligent approach to various visual materials. The greatly visual characteristic of her works appears to be influenced by her several years of occupation in the field of graphic advertising, which she still tries to maintain in conjunction with her activities in the studio. In her works, she combines sculpture, painting, hand printing, animation, and sound in the form of installations. All the pieces speak for themselves about the nature and process of creation. The artist herself states in the statement of the show that the main theme of her works is not the work itself, but rather their ability to describe themselves through visual elements. This is evident in the small screens in the checkered room of the gallery, where the pieces or parts of them seem to be explaining the nature and creation process of her past show through the opening and closing of mouth-like cavities on their bodies. In addition, a model of the "Interview" show's horse as well as its statement, which used images instead of letters, can be seen.

The main installation consists of a papier-mâché and stone putty horse sculpture with a net hat on its head, seated in the center of the gallery on a wooden structure, and a ray of light shining on its body from above. A smaller wooden structure resembling the hurdles in horse racing matches lies in front of it. Ahead of that, on the television screen, an animation film is being played that can refer to the general life of the horse before being displayed, describing it from the point of view of the other involved people with whom it has been in contact. This animation and the other one played on the wall at the end of the gallery are all performed with the rotoscoping technique, that is, each frame is drawn manually from a motion-picture used as reference.

We see a basket of water being poured over the horse's face, and the light hanging from the ceiling behind it is exactly the same as the one appearing in the physical space of the gallery. A hand is petting or cleaning the horse. In the next scene, we see the horse resting on the ground, and at the end, we see him with other horses in their pasture; at this moment, it no longer likes to be stroked and rejects the stranger's hand. A digital painting hangs from the ceiling, showing a human hand fondling a horse. Perhaps, at first glance, these images signify the establishment of a new image of the human-animal relationship in the present era, but for the artist, choosing a horse was based solely on aesthetic reasons and there was no other purpose for it. The most significant part of the work is the process of its construction and the challenges it entails.

A number of handprints are also placed on the wall, narrating a horse racing scene from a bottom-up perspective. This change of viewpoint is one of the distinct aspects of Zamani's work; be it in the image itself or as a metaphor for the expansion of the artist's approach to the work and her exhibiting space. The same feature is visible in the animation that is screened on the gallery's large wall: an image with a first-person view from the back of the horse's head, running through a room with columns exactly like the ones existing in the space of the Parallel Circuit itself.

It is as if we have entered not this space, but the personal space of the white horse of our story that has decided to sit and rest for a while. With a sense of humor, Zamani has redefined the gallery space as if everything is about the situation from which her work was born and located. A week after the show's opening, she even added an instructional poster to the room that was about her previous works so as to leave no ambiguity about the essence of her work. Even though all the components of the installation are primarily describing themselves and the artist is willing to remove all uncertainties, it is the audience who completes this arrangement with their presence in the space and their personal narrative of the scene.