What kind of times are these, when To talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors? ― Bertolt Brecht I’ve always been engaged in questioning the notion of power, and my interest in thinking critically and questioning systems in our society was something I learnt as a child. I know that being born in Sweden as a child to political refugees from Iran, shaped my world and positioned how I view it. Our family dinner discussions and bedtime stories were often about revolution and human rights. My parents political engagement for freedom didn’t end when they came to Sweden. My baba have a book publishing company called Baran that he works with alongside his 9-5 job since 1991. At Baran, he publishes novels, short stories, essays and magazines by various exile Iranian writers and artists, with the freedom of speech as a focus. These texts and books are works that could never be published in Iran. During my childhood, Baba travelled across Europe to organize with other exile-Iranian authors, artists and publishers. Me and my sister would often join these trips. Even though the agenda was about a serious issue, it was always a great adventure to be able to see the world together with them. Growing up super close to this human rights movement, I early on learned that culture, literature and art carried a big responsibility. And that it could be dangerous to be an artist, mainly if you are living in a dictatorship, but also across different nations. The power of art is infinite, and it invites free thinking, imagining, reformulations and questioning. It helps you observe the world from many different angles. That is why I believe that art itself carries a potential for change. During my first year at the BFA program at Kostfack I wrote a short essay about Shakir Attiyah. He is one of my friend’s baba and also a well known artist in the community of Husby where I am from. I wrote about his story, because I couldn’t understand why he was excluded from the art field. It made me angry that he didn’t have the same chance or conditions as someone from the global north to fulfill his artistic carrier and dreams. It made me angry that his story wasn’t unique and that there are so many similar stories like his about exclusion. The essay I wrote was really short and only touched the questions I raised on the surface, so at the beginning of June this year, I decided that I wanted to investigate and research on his life. I first thought that the research would end up in a documentary or as a video essay. But it instead, it progressed into a short video piece. In this essay I present the background to my video piece, Imagined Possibilities, in relation to theory and research about artistic quality and the conditions of foreign-born artists in Sweden. Imagined Possibilities (4 min), is a piece based on Shakir Attiyah's life (him playing as himself), and is a play between facts and fiction. The video was my main piece during my BFA solo exhibition this year in September.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:konstfack-9060 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Mirlashari, Ailin |
| Publisher | Konstfack, Institutionen för Konst (K) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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