A Utopian Stage

A Utopian Stage
Exhibition in the framework of Maerzmusik–Festival für Zeitfragen Curated by  Vali Mahlouji/ Archaeology of the Final Decade

Opening  23.03.2019 19:00
On Show 24.03.2019 – 27.04.2019

A Utopian Stage reconstructs a complex space of international modernity by highlighting the ‘third worldist’ sensibilities of the immediate post-colonial period and tracing a cultural atlas through which knowledge was exchanged across alternative (often non-European) plateaus. This process takes us through a reconstruction of the gaze - subverting the single ‘reading’ of West to East into a more cyclical model, engaging in cultural negotiations from East to East, East to West, South to East, South to South – constructing a panoramic exchange of global artistic discourse.

As a multi-partite project, it takes the Festival of Arts, Shiraz Persepolis as its point of departure to revisit the radical aspirations of the networks of artists, thinkers, cultural practitioners and experimentalists that defined the 1960s and 1970s. The Festival of Arts was a radical artistic and cultural festival of performing arts, held annually in Shiraz and the ancient ruins of Persepolis every summer between 1967-1977. By the early 1970s, the Festival of Arts had become the principal, transgressive platform for transnational experimental exchanges of creativity and knowledge. These exchanges intercepted historical, political and ideological demarcations, to which a new wave of Iranian artists were actively linked. It was successful in its artistic and diplomatic undertaking to bring together artists from across the North-South divide and from both sides of the Cold War political standoffs. Interrupted by the 1978-79 revolution and declared decadent in a decree by Ayatollah Khomeini, all materials associated with the festival have been removed from access and officially remained banned in Iran.

Considering the decade long controversial festival as an historical object, the project retraces its unique landscape and utopian stage. Archaeology of the Final Decade (AOTFD) has unearthed archival materials, audio recordings and film footage retracing its unique utopian landscape and the revolutionary spirit of international transcendental aspirations.

Collaboration The exhibition is presented within the program of MaerzMusik–Festival für Zeitfragen.

Credit (Visual)  Orghast (Part II), written by Ted Hughes in collaboration with Mahin Tajadod, directed by Peter Brook, Arby Ovanessian, Geoffrey Reeves, Andrei Serban, created by International Centre for Theatre Research, performed at Naqsh-e Rostam, Iran, 1971. Courtesy of Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis, International Centre for Theatre Research and Archaeology of the Final Decade