Instant Cult: Tara Najd Ahmadi

Border, or, more accurately, its absence, is one of the terms that best describe the cinematographic expression of Tehrani artist and theorist Tara Najd Ahmadi. The border—a banal line—marks separation, the delineation of land, culture, language, gender, our being, the (un)conscious, the intimate and public, art and politics, poetry and prose, fiction and documentary, analogue and digital. All of these are ideas and concepts, expressive means, and facts that intertwine in Najd Ahmadi’s works, bound together by her experience as a woman, artist, activist, and (im)migrant and the maxim ‘personal is political’. Exactly because of this premise, her images become part of a collective story, an echo of social awareness, mostly lit from the margins and otherness.

Pomemben element avtoričinega filmskega izraza je »ozvočevanje« podob oz. oživljanje in podoživljanje izkušenj in spominov drugega, včasih kar direktno skozi prizmo avtoričinega glasu, medtem ko drugič izkušnje zaupa glasu nekoga tretjega. Tako v filmu Recept umetnostnega zgodovinarja spomine ameriškega umetnostnega zgodovinarja Douglasa Crimpa na neuspeli poskus izdaje maroške kuharice v sedemdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja, tj. pred izdajo prelomne monografije Orientalizem Edwarda Saida leta 1978, ki je postala temeljni premislek zahodne identitetne apropriacije, oživljajo kar štirje glasovi. Ti zvočni in glasovni odmiki, premiki in včasih zamiki prestavljajo individualne izkušnje protagonistov v sfero kolektivnega. Temu ustrezno so tudi vizualne podobe vseskozi razprte, podvojene, celo sestavljene iz različnih materialnosti. V zavezi intimi in subjektivnemu pogledu podobe povezuje asociativna logika, ki jo poganjata humor in iskanje nekakšne vizualne rime, kot npr. v filmu Meritev jakosti upora, v katerem se uporniški potencial lutke izmeri kar na domačem kuhinjskem štedilniku, ob pripravi najbolj tipičnih iranskih jedi, kot so pečena jajca, kuhan riž ali vložene kumarice – revolucija ni zgolj neko abstraktno, zunanje dejstvo, temveč je najprej dejanskost domačega ognjišča.

The artist demands her viewers be playful and attentive to details at all times. The images are frequently fragments, as in the short abstract visual poem The Drowning Friend, that only link with each individual viewing. When the author replies to the question posed in Where Do You Think You’re Going?, her response is silent—muted, silenced, or perhaps just provocatively set to muteness or transferred into the viewers’ imagination. In contrast, the author is far more vocal in Productive Frustration, in which she considers the role of an artist, entrapment in memories, emotions, and blockades, the ability to be sincere and relevant in one’s own art at a specific time and space, and the willingness to engage in political activity.

Although the author does not explicitly mention a border, we recognise it in her artistic expression. She addresses us from a position of otherness, which is immediately erased by her dialectic gesture of awareness of the mixing of binary relationships and her commitment to subjectivism. This is where she warns us that the border exists. It is known as capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and other related concepts.