Mass in Movement-1
Studio 51
Opening at Aaran Gallery on 15 December 2017
On view until 5 January 2018

Mass in movement, a body of works which re-activate a large number of primary sources, is the product of the recent collaboration at Studio 51. These sources are used to counter their original context and function. Therefore, we are to see a situation in which arises a rupture between the thing and the system of signs making that thing thinkable. A found collection of family slides; panoramic photographs of Tehran from the top of Milad Tower; documents pertaining to events in the news; obtained videos from internet’s cyber-space, YouTube and more, are all things that can find themselves in this situation i.e. distortion of meaningful significations through unconventional use of signifiers.

“Studio 51” has been a collaborative project between Bahar Samadi and Navid Salajegheh since 2014. By recycling and re-employing pre-existing footages, as well as, textual/visual materials, and then processing them through a diverse extent of mediums, spanning from moving images to performance, installation, and painting, they attempt to construct a series of micro-narratives and assemblages, which reappear in a here and now that is alternative to their original time and space. The output of these projects are visual, auditory or tactile experiments that create new relationships between content and expression of materials. “Studio 51”, also, functions as a laboratory for these two artists to discover new forms for the possibilities of “working together ” and, ultimately, to observe the way they evolve from one project to another.