mynah mynah in my kitchen
POTLUCK / C3 CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE / 25 SEPTEMBER-20 OCTOBER 2019 / SHIRIN TOWFIQ /ELHAM ESHRAGIAN / ELYAS ALAVI / KATYA ABEDIAN / MAHDI ALIYAR / MONA FORGHANI / MEI SWAN LIM / MANISHA ANJALI / ANGELIQUE HISCOCK / CURATED BY ANGELIQUE HISCOCK
sound, cassette tape, cassette deck, linen doilies, 2019.
"It seems proper that those who create art in a civilisation of quasi-barbarism, which has made so many homeless, should themselves be poets unhoused and wanderers across language. Eccentric, aloof, nostalgic and deliberately un-timely..."
- George Steiner quoted in Reflections on Exile, Edward Said 1984.
MYNAH MYNAH IN MY KITCHEN is a sound installation that renders the unhoused landless ghost in a state of precarious play. The exilée decorates the surrogate home with imperial linen doilies, wholesome colonial relics of love; upon which recorded sonic improvisations are surrogate instruments and surrogate tongues. Language is replaced by ecstatic glossolalia and childlike nostalgia in the space in-between, the surrogate home created in the translucent folds separating one land and another. The wanderer across language seeks freedom from language.
INSTRUCTIONS
TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES.
PRESS REWIND/FAST-FORWARD/PLAY.
