Installation view, Hinterland Gallery, Vienna
Installation view, Monitoimitila O., Helsinki
Erased Images of a Work About Historical Erasure
2022
evolving installation / traveling exhibition in response to the censorship of artist’s work in the exhibition of Estonian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale
Erased Images of a Work About Historical Erasure deals with censored part of Razavi’s installation which was displayed at the Estonian pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. This series of archival photographs of destroyed landscapes in Dutch East Indies document conditions of colonial extraction of labour and soil due to over-exploitation of natural resources. These images were supposed to be the central part of Razavi’s kinetic sculpture called Kratt - Diabolo Nº3 displayed at the Estonian pavilion. But they were removed from her installation without her consent resulting in the exhibition of an incomplete work.
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By presenting the erased images of her installation in a traveling exhibition starting from her hometown Tehran, Razavi attempts to shed light on the complexities that emerge when European colonial history is narrated solely from the European perspective and in the European context and the tendency to erase or highlight specific aspects and perspectives. Razavi also aims to address the existing power structures in the art world which enables such erasures and argues that these structures are comparable to the ones addressed and criticized by the art world, namely in the exhibition of the Estonian Pavilion, Orchidelirium - An Appetite for Abundance.
Schedule:
Room for Doubt, Tehran Iran (April-May)
Estomania, Haihatus Art Center, Joutsa, Finland (June-August)
Hinterland Gallery, Viena, Austria (July)
Ma Art Residency, Yazd, Iran (July)
Monitoimitila O., Helsinki, Finland (August)
Asia Now, Monnaie de Paris (October-November)