Mastering the Curtains

Mastering the Curtains is the result of an intensive research of 2 perspectives in the Islamic Republic of Iran: on the one hand the public and transparent, on the other hand the hidden.

The project focuses on the political use of historical Sufism in the public space by means of Taziyeh performances, a popular street theatre in Iran, and on the political problematic situation of Sufi orders within current Iranian policy.

Originally, these seeming opposites have common ground in Iranian collective memory through a rendition of social and spiritual resistance.

This research consists of a continuous oscillation between exploration and self-reflection.

Reflections on religion, other and I, position and opposition, private and public, transparency and control are combined with series of images as in a ‘flow of consciousness’.

This results in a multi-media use of text, images and sound that boosts the simultaneity of places and times.The social potential of secular mysticism is distilled from this research.

The book Mastering the Curtains is published by Art Paper Editions.

https://www.ideabooks.nl/9789490800611-els-vanden-meersch-mastering-the-curtains