Portrait or Landscape, Anahita?
Portrait or landscape, Anahita? is an exhibition by Sepideh Behrouzian at with the rubbles of old palaces, showing her film of the same title. Her work follows the continuous shaping of a colonial frontier: from oil-mining as a colonial practice, spanning through the promise of development becoming the new placeholder for “overcome” extractive colonial practices, all the way to a flattened representation of a dystopian climate devastation that obscures its asymmetrical effects.
This colonial frontier has dispossessed both land and bodies by creating a disciplinary boundary separating biology from geology, the private from the public, and the traditional from the modern. Despite this, the oppressive incisions reveal parallel scars that can unite when joint, forming new kinships beyond the constraints of disciplinary divisions, often determined by race, gender and social class.
Sepideh Behrouzian has taken the desiccated riverbed of Zayendeh Rud in Esfahan, her hometown, as a site where the spectres of geology and biology convene: ghosts that emerge when the haunted, dry river discharges its secrets.
Anahita, as a proposed figure, transcends being a mere ancient goddess of water. She is embodied as a speculative amalgamation of diverse entities, capable of shapeshifting and adapting, of staying with the trouble. Her presence serves as a haunting reminder of the suppression of nature and those who have been “othered”, relegated to the status of mere objects of acquisition on the horizon.
In pursuit of Anahita’s non-patriarchal time and space, Sepideh Behrouzian employs autobiographical fiction, poetry, and filmed footage intertwined with representational historical materials. The film delves into the concealed violence lurking beneath discourses of progress and civilisation. Portrait or landscape, Anahita? challenges the dichotomous approach towards nature as either “an outside wilderness that must be tamed” or as “pure, scarce and untamable, in need for protection”. It exposes the intersecting exploitations of gendered and racialised bodies with that of environmental resources.
This is a ghost story from the past and the future that haunts the here and now. The ghosts only make their presence apparent when the flow of the river is disrupted, signalling that a haunting is taking place. No one sets foot in the empty riverbed, except during social and political protests against injustice. As if seemingly useless for construction or cultivation, the desolate wasteland of the dry river becomes a political space and a site for ghosts to assemble. The ghost of Anahita and other apparitions…
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.Poster design by Socis Club.
Exhibition photos by Tian Guoxin.
Portrait or landscape, Anahita? is part of the series Promises of Ever-coming Prosperity // نوید آبادانی with Sepideh Behrouzian. Promises of Ever-Coming Prosperity is a long-term exploration of development thinking in Iran. It navigates the temporal dimensions of linear progress ushered in by the forces of modernisation, both imperial and colonial, of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Her research investigates how the colonisation of land and time are woven together, looking at how the landscape is shaped through the imposition of a linear progressive temporality. Through the situated storytelling of "Promises of Ever-Coming Prosperity", a critical examination unfolds, revealing the latent, invisible consequences of societal and environmental transformations, connecting improbable relations in a series of video essays.
Spectres of the River
Spectres of the River is an online reading group series leading up to Sepideh Behrouzian’s upcoming exhibition Portrait or landscape, Anahita?. We will be looking at a selection of materials that have directly or indirectly informed the research for Sepideh Behrouzian’s film on the now dry river Zayandeh Rud in her city, Isfahan (Iran), and the intersecting conditions of such environmental degradation.
The film considers climate change within a history of gendered, racial, and colonial oppression, problematizing the underpinning separation between the human and its environment. Throughout history, gendered and racialised bodies have been closely entangled with environmental exploitation and resource extraction by being forced into an objectified relationship with the system of domination, and subjected to the extraction of property, labour, and personhood. The separation of the human from its environment has been used to justify its subjugation by framing “nature” as passive matter that must be activated by the mastery of “man”. This same structure of thought upholds the oppression of gendered and racialised bodies by framing them as passive actors closer to “nature” and readily available for exploitation. Behrouzian’s research examines how these forms of violence often remain hidden beneath discourses centered around the nation-state, civilisation, progress and modernization, belonging and exclusion, and property.
Spectres of the River will be divided into four sessions, each focusing on a different perspective into this research.
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
In 'Potential History,' Azoulay brings up the shutter — the act of closing or opening the aperture of a camera — as the mechanism used to control visibility, restrict access, and exert power over what is seen and known. By examining the politics of the 'shutter,' Azoulay encourages reevaluating visual culture and actively engaging with images, questioning dominant narratives and opening up possibilities for alternative histories and modes of seeing.
Session 1: Time Technology
Our study group has been deeply engaged in the realm of Potential History, as introduced by Ariel Aisha Azoulay. This exploration unveiled the exercise of power through a universalized, homogenous and progressive linear temporality. Building upon this foundation, we now delve into the concrete manifestation of power within the realm of development, focusing on the Point Four Program, which significantly contributed to the implementation of agricultural advancements that later became vital components of the Green Revolution.
The Point Four program, launched in the mid-20th century, aimed to provide technical assistance and economic aid to “underdeveloped” countries, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It stemmed from the idea of a need for progress and development, driven by the presumption that half of the world's population lived in misery. However, beyond its humanitarian motives, the program was also intertwined with the complexities of Cold War policies, linking industrial development and raised living standards in other countries. It had multiple objectives: addressing post-war issues in colonial and semi-colonial regions, empowering independence movements, and stimulating American capital exports. Simultaneously, it played a role in a comprehensive military plan to secure new areas for airfields and military bases around the globe.
As the 1950s and 1960s unfolded, international organizations like the World Bank and IMF shifted their focus to development as a central theme, propagating the idea of economic progress as a pathway to global prosperity and stability.
Amidst this expansion of development thinking, the term underwent a transformation into political language, marking a defining era after World War II. Truman's Point Four Program, presented in his second inaugural address, paved the way for the UN's subsequent proclamation of the “development decades” starting in 1960. Despite the ideological rivalries and practical challenges that ensued, the vision of a paradise on Earth persisted at the core of a mechanistic epistemology of development and aid.
Although many social and critical sciences have regarded development ideals as mythical, it continues to function as a protocol, pattern, and logic within institutions, even at the level of nation-states. However, it is crucial to acknowledge this reality alongside the social and environmental devastation that development has brought about.
Session 2: Development
In our last two sessions of the “Spectres of the River” study group, we delved into different aspects of the critique of imperialism. The first session focused on the undoing of progressive linear temporality, while the second session turned around the critique of development thinking, and specifically examined Harry Truman's Point Four Program from 1949. In this session, we will explore the notion of the commons as an alternative communal and political paradigm addressing social justice, inequality, and resource distribution issues. It will look at how the commons challenge ideas of private property and state control, offering a framework rooted in inclusivity and participatory politics.
Are shared resources inevitably depleted due to individual selfishness, as suggested by Garrett Hardin in the concept of “the tragedy of the commons”? Or can we explore this idea through different terms as well as lived examples, including the historical and contemporary roles of women in defending communal natural resources, as well as their commitment to non-capitalist land use and subsistence-oriented agriculture? We will delve into the concept of the commons within everyday life, emphasising the importance of overcoming the separation between production, reproduction, and consumption.
Session 3: The Commons
In our last “Spectres of the River” study group session, “Ghosts of Geology”, we will critically explore climate change discourses. We will be focusing on the Anthropocene, with an emphasis on its historical and racial dimensions, often overlooked in mainstream discussions. Drawing inspiration from Kathryn Yusoff's book, “A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None”, we will delve into the intersections of race, geology, and environmentalism. Yusoff argues that understanding the Anthropocene requires a rethinking of geology, shedding light on the proximity of the experience of oppression and exploitation by black and brown bodies with environmental harm. We'll examine how this proximity is linked to historical geographies of extraction, imperial global structures and contemporary environmental racism. The session will conclude by recognising geology not just as a science but as a racial formation and extractive discipline, prompting us to reconsider its role in shaping our understanding of the Anthropocene. To close this series, we will bring together the themes that shaped the fabric of the film “Portrait or landscape, Anahita?”: we will look at the intricate connections between geological practices, environmental degradation, migration and the production of inequality within the realm of earth sciences and human geography.