Kaya Behkalam
© Kaya Behkalam
Fear Filled Her Heart as, Gazing Back, She Saw (A Farewell to the Monument) (in Arabic with English subtitles), is a performative reflection on the critical potential of the body. Artist in a video treats the body both as a physical, corporeal entity and as an abstract metaphor signifying a community of subjects, systems and ideas. The work is based on visual material consisting of idealised representations of European countries in the form of iconical sculptures and paintings – allegorical personifications such as Germania, Marianne, Britannia, Helvetia, Polonia, Mother Russia or Europe itself. Mostly represented through the female body, these images give form to national mythologies, historical events, collective images and national traumas. A group of Non-European dancers appropriates these symbolic gestures. Through improvised means, the dancers use their bodies as archaeological instruments. They trace both the corporeal and the conceptual, the utopian and the violent origins of imagined communities, and the emancipatory potential of performances that in their ambiguity defy the monumental models and main narratives of European identity constructions.
Biography
Behkalam is a visual artist, film maker, and writer. Currently he is an expert in residence at SPUR.lab. In his video, installation and text based works he ivestigates the entanglements of historiography, of image and media politics. Behkalam is the co-founder of the artist group RELOADING IMAGES, an initiative, that works on collective artistic projects.
Since June 2018 he is the director of the non-profit art association Künstlerhof Frohnau, a studio place for artistic activities in the North of Berlin. Kaya Behkalam lives and works in Berlin
Kaya Behkalam
© Kaya Behkalam
Fear Filled Her Heart as, Gazing Back, She Saw (A Farewell to the Monument) (in Arabic with English subtitles), is a performative reflection on the critical potential of the body. Artist in a video treats the body both as a physical, corporeal entity and as an abstract metaphor signifying a community of subjects, systems and ideas. The work is based on visual material consisting of idealised representations of European countries in the form of iconical sculptures and paintings – allegorical personifications such as Germania, Marianne, Britannia, Helvetia, Polonia, Mother Russia or Europe itself. Mostly represented through the female body, these images give form to national mythologies, historical events, collective images and national traumas. A group of Non-European dancers appropriates these symbolic gestures. Through improvised means, the dancers use their bodies as archaeological instruments. They trace both the corporeal and the conceptual, the utopian and the violent origins of imagined communities, and the emancipatory potential of performances that in their ambiguity defy the monumental models and main narratives of European identity constructions.
Biography
Behkalam is a visual artist, film maker, and writer. Currently he is an expert in residence at SPUR.lab. In his video, installation and text based works he ivestigates the entanglements of historiography, of image and media politics. Behkalam is the co-founder of the artist group RELOADING IMAGES, an initiative, that works on collective artistic projects.
Since June 2018 he is the director of the non-profit art association Künstlerhof Frohnau, a studio place for artistic activities in the North of Berlin. Kaya Behkalam lives and works in Berlin