Statement:

“Be Mindful of the Steps You Take in Spite of the Steps You Are to Take” is an installation by Roksana Pirouzmand at Electric Room. It presents a tilted setup of a schoolroom that appears to defy and stand against the expected force of gravity. The setup includes two double school benches and a blackboard, with their roles and positions reversed: the blackboard sits on the ground, while the benches hang on the wall. As so, the scribbles and notes of the ‘students’ become the focus on the display, while the ‘important’ points and ‘educational’ material expressed by the teacher who leads the sessions fall to a less pronounced position.

The installation explores such ideas as “looking up” to long-held dynamics within both the schoolroom and the society at large, as well as the rapidly-shifting role of ‘the school’ and ‘the teacher/educator’ in the broader context of learning. Through inverting the positions, the installation imagines a radical transformation of knowledge, power, respect, expression, feeling of shame, entitlement, subordination and the induced need for gaining organized knowledge.

Roksana Pirouzmand is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. In her practice, she focuses on the interaction between the human body as a receiver/viewer and as an activator/performer, with the materials’ qualities often serving as a method of communication between the two. She studied at California Institute of the Arts and the University of California Los Angeles. “Be Mindful of the Steps You Take in Spite of the Steps You Are to Take” is Roksana’s debut show in her native Iran.