I went to the Tate Modern looking for a source of inspiration as was required, and after going through all the floors without finding anything that really inspired me, I went to the Tanks, and I found a two-channel video installation by Shirin Nashat which really resonated with me - two screens facing each other. I already knew a bit of Shirin Neshat from her self-portrait works with inscriptions in Arabic on her face.
Soliloquy. 1999 by Shirin Neshat –Soliloquy. 1999 by Shirin Neshat – in The Tanks - Tate Modern
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?extid=SEO----&v=240007497981553&_rdr
The memorable scenes for me were –
- On one screen a woman (played by the artist) wearing a chador, a full-length black veil normally worn by Iranian women, wanders around in the ancient town of Mardin in Turkey on the border with Syria.
- And on the facing screen the scene is Albany in New York State, USA.
The two screens are simultaneously overlapping in multiple contexts and show a contrasting and parallel series of shots – in one, for example, the woman is standing at the window of what seems to be a modern flat in the USA overlooking railway tracks and motorways, and in the other she is shown at a barred window overlooking an ancient middle eastern courtyard.
In another series she is in a room at what seems to be a monastery attending what seems to be a catholic ritual in the USA, where about a dozen nuns dressed in white are performing the ritual holding hands, and in the opposing screen she is in a Mosque surrounded by women dressed in black. In both scenarios however, she is outside the group and seems to be looking at the other screen as if she is observing herself.
In this work, Soliloquy, the protagonist in the video is clearly dealing with identity and sense of belonging as a Middle Eastern woman living in America, her diasporic state. She is also dealing with her dual relationship and continuous cultural ties to both her mother country, where tradition and religion and political issues are paramount in everyday life, and America, her contemporary country of settlement.
Reflection
The videos really resonated with me and made we wonder why that was - and also made me want to do some work on immigration and sense of belonging.
I did a spider diagram trying to clarify my thought about the subject
Migration is not merely a phenomenon of modern life; it has been present since the beginning of recorded time. People have always migrated, whether in search of food or fleeing tribal wars, or indeed as conquerors and colonisers seeking to displace people of weaker countries and take over their lands.
Migration has often had a knock-on effect, successive waves of migrants adding to or displacing the populations of adjacent lands, and exiles and refugees trying to escape war, poverty, economic privation, oppression, or corruption, all have one thing in common - the search for a better life - whatever that means for each of them. New arrivals challenge the status quo in the countries they enter, and in sufficient numbers they can change the status quo in both positive and negative ways.
I believe that both for the residents and the incomers there is a lot to be said and understood if we are to create a more equal and understanding society
One of the reasons the Shirin Neshat videos at the Tate resonated with me was autobiographical - as a migrant myself in the UK I totally understand the issues she refers to in the piece. It’s not an exact parallel with my life as a South American woman born in the 1960s of working-class parents, where education and ambition were the only way out to poverty. I didn’t have the same religious or political contradictions to deal with, and the sense of belonging contradictions were not so radical, but at the same time the diasporic attachment to my country of birth and to that society are always present, and this is a subject I would like to explore in my practice. They would be elements of surrealism and/or magic realism in my work as I feel that these elements appear in my work naturally.
In an increasingly global and digitally connected world we’re bombarded with news of migration, and not only migration from poor to rich countries. It’s happening in many parts of world – witness the forced displacement of the Rohingyas of Myanmar, the migration of Venezuelans to neighbouring Latin-American countries, and sadly within Europe too at the moment. I think it’s important that we in the art world address the subject.
My research on the subject -
Sara Ahmed said that spaces – not necessarily physical spaces but also spaces of existence - are constructed for certain types of people and these spaces are metaphorically moulded for them, places in which migrants must deal with issues of race, gender, religion, and language. This may well create a sense of disorientation for migrants - a feeling of not belonging, of being out of place. I think that is the case, it’s not that we are merely living in a physical space, we’re also living in a space of existence where things need adjustment to cope with issues which can indeed create a sense of not belonging.
Migrants have to deal with their diasporic situation - with their dual relationship and dual loyalties – and with the continuing social, economic and cultural ties to both their place of birth and their place of settlement (Rouse 1991). This dual relationship is always present, and how strong it is depends on several factors, including the age when the migration occurred, religious factors, and how well adjusted the migrant is to the new location.
At the moment being in Peru for family reasons to care from my 94yo mother and my brother I would like to use my time here to gather material, videos, photograph, which I will combine with material which I am planning to gather in the UK that will allow me to create work when I am back in the UK.
References
Lavie, S. and Swedenburg, T. 2013. Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity. New York, USA: Duke University Press.
Mitchell, W.J.T. and Hansen, M.B. eds., 2010. Critical terms for media studies. University of Chicago Press.
Valentina Vitali (2004) Corporate art and critical theory: on Shirin Neshat, Women: a cultural review, 15:1, 1-18, DOI: 10.1080/0957404042000197161
Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Duke University Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucreative-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1169326