Shahrzad Amin

Bridge Obscura: Connecting Cultures through Sculpture Installation

Upon entering the gallery space, the viewer sees three large-scale plywood arches that are installed from the wall-out, one in front of the other. The repetition of arches toward the wall is expected to give the impression of space extending beyond the given limits of the room and direct the visitor’s attention to a video projection on the wall of the gallery space. The plywood structures are modeled after the four-centred arches of bridges in my hometown, Isfahan. The projection compiles images and sounds that depict significant aspects of the vernacular life that animates such historical and cultural places as Allah Verdikhan and Khaju bridges.

“21st century Iran is often said to be a country in the grips of isolationism: imposed by bothinternal and external factors. On one hand, the sanctions applied by the US government isolate thecountry and restrict the living conditions and mobility of Iranian people, merchants, artists, anddesigners. On the other, international sanctions lead to political and cultural isolationism at thenational level, making the country turn inward as a reactionary response and reinforcing thealienating cycle. Through the lenses of art practice, sensory ethnographic filmmaking, andarchitectural design, this artwork examines the power and effectiveness of an art exhibition thatfeatures interdisciplinary sculpture installation, to express ideas about connectivity in such aclimate of isolationism. The sculpture installation works in the exhibition highlight a socialopenness and necessity for global international connectivity, by applying the figure of the archbridge (symbolic for Iran’s once important status as a connector between civilizations along thepath of trade routes) as a metaphor for overcoming cultural distances. In the influential collectedvolume, The Social Life of Things, cultural anthropologists Arjun Appadurai and Igor Kopytoffargue that objects (including architectural ones) in a given culture can reveal biographicalinformation about the society at large, when one focuses on how they have been put to use andculturally redefined over time. The cultural responses to the biographical details of objects castlight on the aesthetic, historical, and political judgments and values that shape our attitudes. Mythesis and exhibition take the arch bridge as an architectural object and formal representation ofcultural referents along these lines, approaching the figure of the arch bridge biographically inorder to generate an alternative space that connects contemporary Iranian culture to the rest of theworld despite/against boundaries.”