A project of the New Media Society and Parking Video Library
Sara Abbasnejad, Anahita Hekmat, Nebras Hoveizavi, Jaleh Nesari, Sona Safaei-Sooreh, Sanaz Sohrabi, Negar Yaghmaeian
Curated by Amirali Ghasemi
Opening on July 23rd, 2021
On view until August 2nd, 2021
“Arbitrary Lines” is a project by the New Media Society and Parking Video Library, which gathers seven lens-based artists who live around the globe.
Their unique and research-based approaches question mass media coverage, representations of the other, and the silent process of marginalization via micro/macro narratives. In these works, the boundaries of intimate stories and personal spaces blur with the manifestation of sociopolitical concerns.
Using various resources from print media, found footage, and testimonies in public archives to collages and 3D models inspired by advertisements, their multifaceted perspectives simultaneously reflect fragmented realities and fables. Most importantly, their cameras dare to capture segregation and normalization’s obscure and elusive lines. Hence, the ambiguity within the imaginary allows them to bypass loops of Nostalgia and simultaneously reveal the system’s vulnerability.
The “Arbitrary Lines” is about the existing, growing, and fading, closing up or moving away lines-all shaped by artists into personal, organic, entertaining, and frightening imagery: the ephemeral and delicate traces captured in frames.
From curator’s note for catalog