Still from Shallow Water, Deep Skin
Today’s Six Pillars comprises a talk by Artist Nooshin Farhid to mark her solo show at The Agency Gallery, South East London in Spring 2012.
Farhid was in conversation with Iranian entomologist and political activist Shahin Nawai and artist/writer Paul O’Kane.
Shahin Nawai in Shallow Water, Deep Skin
Farhid had created a major work in the form of a film called Shallow Water, Deep Skin, after which he solo show was named. The film part documents aspects of the Iranian revolution which Shahin Nawai was in Iran for, and part studies human malaise via forms of insect behaviour.
Shahin Nawai is currently undertaking research at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, where she works. While carrying out entomological work at Tehran University Shahin was a founder member of the largest women organisation after the Iranian revolution 1979. The organisation was a platform for women to mobilise against the infringement of their rights by the Islamic government. Shahin was forced to leave her country and live in exile. The work by Farhid explores two seemingly different and what might appear irreconcilable differences—the scientific study of the insect world and the world of political activism.
Six Pillars 