Tahqiqotaxayol

THE FREQUENCY GOES HIGHER AND HIGHER, WE SHIVER

A discursive and participatory duo exhibition 
*Tahqiqotaxayol means research and imagination in Farsi.

Opening: December 2 th 2022- SPREEUFER, Berlin(DE)
Exhibition time: 3.12.2022 – 22.01.2023

In a storefront space 3,775 kilometers away from Iran in Berlin Mitte, artists Ronak Moshtaghi and Erfan Aboutalebi created an art installation to facilitate gatherings, collective study, learning, and unlearning. For this discursive exhibition, twelve artists were invited to conduct workshops, exploring the limits and possibilities of spatial distance to their home country in politically and socially crucial times. For six weekends, visitors engaged in dialogue through participation in readings, bookmaking, screening, sound workshops, and performance.

The gallery windows are taped in the shape of two intersecting lines, looping this sentence: “OUR COMMON GROUND IS WHERE, OUR HANDS ARE TOO SHORT TO REACH AND OUR FEET ARE TOO FAR TO LAND ON IT.” Inside the room is a table with four chairs, and two small clay figures sit on them. Behind the table is a map showing Berlin Spree with a blue LED lamp going on and off every fifteen minutes. Next to the map is a red-lit room with a wall filled with books, articles, and a printer. On the left are two little funny bookshelves on wheels, as described by Ashkan Sepahvand: “The angle of the construction looked a bit askew, and the structures appeared to slant a bit. I imagined the texts accidentally sliding off the sloped shelves. They just can’t stay up straight! This queer gesture, quite literally, felt reassuring. Mobile bookshelves, slippery texts, unstable reading. A pile of scraps out back, on the way to the bathroom, easily overlooked. Even though we both agreed that there’s so much we want to study, it felt important to resist fetishizing this knowledge or romanticizing our ignorance. The library would be less about texts that must be read and more about bodies wanting to read.”

Concept, design & production: Erfan Aboutalebi,Ronak Moshtaghi
Assistants design & production: Farokh Falsafi
Workshops conductors: Mehdi Torkaman, Hedieh Ahmadi, Saba Keyvanshokouhi, Bahar Noorizadeh, Faraz Fesharaki, Tina Kadkhodayan,”Archive für Forschung und Documentation Iran”,Momo, Farokh Falsafi, Zahra Moein, Roza Moshtaghi,H.F
Reading list and introduction text: Ashkan Sepahvand
Supported by: HIER&JETZT: CONNECTION residency,  BARAZANI BERLIN(Forum for kolonialismus und widerstand)