Ali Ardalan: This is not a line
Ali Ardalan: This is not a line
2021, kesto 02:30
Through an experimental video that consists of a juxtaposition of footage and the animated image, I attempt to focus on the language as a fabricated phenomenon by means of asking fundamental questions about different constructed boundaries like the border. I believe that “all boundaries are artificial none are natural”.1 Through making atmosphere to question unsettle the relation between language and object, I would like to heighten a border as a structured phenomenon and tell the non-linear story of imposed brutality on asylum seekers. My endeavor will visualize hidden violence and structures that the concentrated authority like nation state tends to represent as entirely natural and a part of a given situation.
1M, Mamdani, Beyond Settler, and Native as Political Identities, p 652.
Artist statement
To study and contemplate over the relations of power has been a field of great interest to me. This, I believe, is a fundamental question that by no means is limited to a particular geography. Every society, to improve those conditions that lead to democracy, should constantly question the sphere of power and challenge its own social structures. If we go a bit forward in relations of power, we notice that tension and conflict between the individual and the collective are the basis for many social and political discussions, tied in to many other key concepts such as the meaning of individual rights, individual freedom in relation to the freedom of others, individual integrity in conflict with the collective, as well as the issue of morality. Therefore in my work I try to deal with this and evoke questions to which the viewer in his/her free interpretation can arrive at suitable answers.
In my work which consists mostly of installations, I use a combination of different materials. The use of indifferent material in a specific work allows for the movement between various materials, as a result of which, instead of concentrating on a specific medium, we have interaction between different media. For me, this approach is as a collage in which different pieces belonging to different contexts assemble in a work, and, as regards the meaning, reinforce the idea that what we have is no longer a consistent reality but various pieces of reality waiting to be interpreted.