The Pit Dorsa Basij
My approach and thought process are based on continuous interaction with my environment and its attributes. This has led my work to not be confined to a single medium, utilizing photography, video, sound and multimedia installations.
Whenever I find myself in a new environment or condition— often unpredictable in this land—I begin by observing and absorbing the influences of that space on myself. In this phase, the space, being dynamic, shapes my perception. Gradually, I add something from my experience to the space, and this process repeats over and over until the work slowly finds its final form. In this process, details always serve as my main sources of inspiration.
Although in the long-term most of my ideas and projects are influenced by the environment in which I work and live in, those that start with a spontaneous event or encounter generally interest me more. In such conditions, an unnoticed moment strikes my thoughts and imagination, becoming a fresh beginning. The process thus initiated often leads to both internal and external changes in vision, thought, and approach, hence it is sometimes better not to bring too much prior knowledge into the work and allow the environment to become a source of inspiration. In such a process, not everything can be precisely planned.
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One reason for my interest in site-specific projects is that these types of works often challenge rigidity and stability, leading to transformation. Moreover, working in large open spaces involves its unique challenges and requires managing many factors, while many of those factors are beyond our control. These unknowns and unexpected changes sometimes work in favor of the project, turning each project into an experience and a source of inspiration for future projects.
In “Industrial Heritage Project” (October 2021, Dayhim Factory), I followed this approach. I decided to use what was left behind; remnants that carried forgotten memories and histories. With the awareness of their history, my view of them transformed, and these remains became part of the creative process.
Later during my starting a studio residency at the factory, one day while photographing the sunset, I noticed a “place”: a pit where something that no longer existed had left a trace of time—walls that had absorbed the layers of time. This space deeply impacted me and became the starting point of the project in my mind.
This pit and the path later prepared for us to enter it served as a realm of interaction between place and time for me. From the beginning, the factory in my mind belonged to the realm of “the picturesque”; a space whose ruins held a unique aesthetic. A factory that, after bankruptcy and nearly ten years of abandonment, was reopened to a group of artists had the same attraction of contrast and discordant beauty for me: a space where the passage of time and the collapse of structures intertwined as aesthetic elements. Therefore, the aesthetics of ruins, which is part of the picturesque, became the focal point of my project.
Decay and disintegration are key themes in my work. Generally, my works are process-oriented and gradually emerge from my experiences. In expressing this idea, I am indebted to the book, “Natural History of Decay” by Baraneh Emadian, where it is written, “Natural history demonstrates the life of an object as its destruction by the universal and turns the historical process into a kind of lived experience.”
Artistic projects are to me never predetermined and planned from the start; rather, parts of the work emerge during the process. In “The Pit”, I added signs of my presence and the passage of time to the space. Therefore, through an experimental process, I printed photographs of sunsets I
captured daily from the same location on backlight paper and laid them on the ground so that wind, rain, and sun would naturally affect them. These elements eroded part of my image and confronted me with a page that, although marred, carried new layers of meaning.
These images, influenced by environmental factors, transformed into something else; the traces of nature were etched onto them, and the object and nature impacted each other in the process of destruction. I attempted to use the sedimented images in the location to build an unstable and temporary structure, as if I had accumulated time in this pit.
Part of my daily records carrying a history was placed in this pit to be marred, and then I tried to turn that space into a safe yet temporary shelter by wrapping these images around it. The juxtaposition of fragile and perishable materials with sturdy rebar was of special importance to me, as if these two materials experienced a kind of violence and pressure together.
Fragility and aggression simultaneously, though neither overcoming the other, resemble grappling with current conditions to me. Yi-Fu Tuan, the late Chinese-American writer, writes, “Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other. There is no place like home.” This sentence has always been in my mind throughout this project and has inspired questions such as how to turn space into place, how to live temporarily, and how memories and stories affect our perception in places, giving them new meaning.
In planning and shaping this project, the constant tension between being present in this world and continuously being erased, between the transcendent and the mortal, has been a central focus. By observing ruins, one can grasp the passage of time, and I have tried, through a process-oriented and time- bound project that is part of my daily record, to mar them and create something new from the remnants. Throughout the work, contemplation of the transcendent and eternal has only been possible through the transient and ruined.
My attention to an object and its daily recording has focused on repetition; a repetition that arises from life itself but is different each time. The more this continuity, the greater meaning it creates within itself. Thus, photographing the sunset for me began with going to the factory and recording the sky daily at a specific hour, gradually, the sunset replaced that hour and became the focal point; seeing a grandeur that vanishes before the eyes, yet knowing it will remain and hoping for its repetition. The sunset and the time between the presence and absence of the sun, while signifying the passage of time and the continuity of life, also reminds us of its loss. Following this view, the photos are presented as scrolls to symbolize accumulation and the effort to preserve time.
As the process continued, with mutual influence and impact, both the project progressed and I became more influenced by the environment. The photos were placed in the environment, entering a reciprocal relationship with it. In this work, the trace of the environment was imprinted on them, and simultaneously, their trace remained on the ground. When I was not present in that place, they continued their mutual impact, and upon encountering them again, only traces of how and the quality of this impact remained.
This accumulation of time and influences gradually led to the creation of models that, through successive changes, turned into rough and metal sculptures that had a nature influenced by the reactions of materials in the pit but were independent. These sculptures, shaped by positive and negative spaces, absence, loss, decay, and a re-examination of place and time, were inspired by the movement of objects under natural processes like the wind. They are, in a way, temporary shelters that, while sedimented and residual, also protect remnants of the past.
It Comes Our Way
Mehrdad Ghasemkhan (DB) — Dastan’s Basement shows “It Comes Our Way”, a photography-based work by multi-media artist Dorsa Basij (b. 1990, Tehran) curated by Alborz Kazemi. “It Comes Our Way” will open
Friday, July 22 2022 and shall be on view until Friday, August 19. In her first cooperation with Dastan’s Basement, the artist relies on archival photographs and videos to study the moment of explosion only to arrive at a new understanding of annihilation.
For Dorsa Basij events following an explosion form a unified whole – when gases start to dissipate, we gradually see what remains. By recording images prior to detonation, the artist is looking at the process of destruction and annihilation in two phases: the moment of destruction and the process of annihilation. The process of annihilation doesn’t end with the destruction of the object but unfolds in stages. After the explosion, for example, when the dust has settled, its effects carry on for years to come. Images that Dorsa records of the explosion turn into pure abstractions. Scenes that the artist had recorded of “wind” on video comprise single frames of “unexpected incidents” that distort the video images momentarily, turning into a game of hide and seek in the eyes of the observer. With these images, we come face to face with a moment whose meaning we cannot decipher.
About the Factory
Poonel Industrial Group began its operations in 1977 under the leadership of the late Davood Deyheemi, manufacturing pre-fabricated houses and employing fifty people. After fifteen years, operations were expanded and moved to the current location in Pakdasht as an integrated compound consisting of seven factories with a labor force of over 600 people, producing construction materials.
The production lines at Poonel Industrial Group along with all operations ended in 2010.
Today 17 acres of land are being converted into new spaces and venues for vi- sual arts, shared workspace and production, and agriculture.
What remains implies an aspiration so rare these days. The relics indicate a most productive people, willful and determined towards development and prog- ress. Among the industrial objects that have survived, there lie stories that the viewer can decode and review. Memory is now damaged, and what one can do is to meticulously study the remains. In this project, one
can think of the factory as an infrastructure or a dynamic material that the artist has used to create art and fresh interpretations.
Pooya Aryanpour
Boogh Afand (Wind-horn)
We doubt everything that seeks to make aware. Something that paradoxically guides us towards safety.
The “Boogh Afand” is a project in three phases, consisting of a network of pipes, part of which was already there in the
factory, formerly used for sawdust transportation. The other
part consistsof videos, displayed on monitors, installed in different parts of the production hall. A number of monitors are connected to devices that are out of order, while others belong to the control room of the hall. By manipulating the forms and adding newsections to other factory spaces, we expanded the network and attached large megaphones to them to modify the structure.
Dorsa Basij/Siavash Hatam/Parmis Hakimi Bahareh Sattarifar/Farbod Farvan
18:18”-20:24”
Residential building plan.
Mine and other motion at home.
From 14Feb to 22 Jun
self
other
Description
The relationship between human beings and their surroundings matters to me. This work refers to quarantine days and indicates the idea that our behavioral patterns are series of consistent habits which we keep repeating unknowingly.
Events and Occurrences
Description
The main purpose of this work is showing the relationship between history and our lives as well as the reflection social incident on each individual.
This work illustrates 180 days of my life summarized in a kitchen sink and the message behind choosing this frame was pointing at the fact that a kitchen sink despite being a solid frame can represent the cycle of life as it gets filled , emptied daily and also shine a light on what remains at the end of the day and the impacts it has on individuals.
Events and Occurrences / Photo Print on Paper / 2020 / 120 x 310 cm Installation View
We focused on the importance of freewill and its effects on the life of human beings. Based on the above, we designed a structure consisting of five separate rooms, each demonstrating an incomplete detail of a complete narrative. The viewer will judge the narrative based on his own choice.
Collaborative project
Never ending actions, it is about the border between vain action and efficient ones.
Our ordinary actions that we do daily, the ones that we feel obliged to repeat because we are afraid to loose their associated correspondents. My inquiry is about how far we can take it and when is the best time to leave it?