Lamentation Offerings
An Offering of Honor - August 2020
A livestream performance on the night of Ashura 2020, during a global pandemic to mourn Femicides linked to the project Golestan Revisited. The performance was at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions on Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, beginning with a blood extraction. It was followed by a live sonic component of a percussionist (present) and a vocalist (remote) who performed a song written by Motevalli to commemorate 14 year old Romina Ashrafi, groomed and seduced by a 32 year old man then beheaded by her own father for running off with her predator. The song is performed in the tradition of a Nohe/Mataam using the men as symbols of Iranian and American governments crushing the Iranian people through their cold war of “honor”. Throughout the performance, there was also a projection of matched roses and stories of women/girls and femmes killed either by their family members or partners or ex-partners throughout the period of the global pandemic quarantine, March through August 2020. Throughout the performance, a response is painted in the artists blood through a stream of consciousness as an act of sacrifice and self blame. The text is painted the text backward to be seen through the glass, for passersby on the street and those watching virtually
Borrowing Authority from Death - October 2021
October 7, 2021 marking 20 years after the first bombs were dropped on Afghanistan and the “War on Terror”. A ritual/performance of mourning dedicated to the tragedies of these wars., and those killed in the wars. Began indoors at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, using live piercing of my back to take on the pain of those affected. Then a reflective walk through Broadway to the footprint of the Twin Towers, into Liberty park, down Washington Boulevard, through Little Syria and into Battery Park; all sites of burials and loss. I stood in front of the monuments along the way dedicated to wars and vengeance. The performance also served as a form of iconoclasm.I designed a wearable sculptural altar based on the alam (symbolic banner used in Shia mourning rituals) carried in street marches from Shia and Sufi rituals. I wore this “altar” costume to become the altar.
Sangeh Tamam (The Last Stone) - October 2021
An endurance performance in response to Sherin Guirguis’ installation, Here I Have Returned, commissioned by Art d’Egypt on the platform of The Great Pyramids of Giza. Sherin’s piece was on a hill visually framing the Queen’s Pyramids of the third Tomb of Menakaure. I began my performance at the Queens’ Pyramids as an ablution, to commemorate those who have remained unrecognized and as a gestural act of iconoclasm. In this performance, for 3 hours, I used stones, trash and dung found on the plateau to create a path from the Queens’ tombs to Sherin’s sculptural installation; connecting the past to the present. The stones were also used as tasbeeh, to chant and remember all those who lost their lives.
