Gracious in Defeat (reprise)
2017
TRT 10:10
HD Video, Sound
Performers: Bugu Somet, Meena Saleh
EXHIBITION:
MERGE, Platforme Gallery, Paris, FR
Performers: Bugu Somet, Meena Saleh
EXHIBITION:
MERGE, Platforme Gallery, Paris, FR
Gracious in Defeat (reprise) (excerpt)
Gracious in Defeat is a performance about obsession and mourning, to be captured by self and other. Even hair deserves to be grieved. Even its death is haunting.
This piece is part of a series called Zulf is Beloved that address hair loss, hair removal, and how hair manifests and performs gender and sexuality for an Iranian-American femme. The word for hair in Farsi is 'zulf', used, not in ordinary conversation, rather in love poetry to praise the beloved's hair. Or to describe hair that is inappropriately displayed. Seduction or shame. The Persia of Qajar celebrated the fluidity of gender and sexuality. Westernization removed hair from the body to equate with modernity and removed femininity from the male land and the male sun. I gave hair back to Qajar, for what was once lost into otherness is now found in the future perfect.