Story teller (2012)

Kamran Behrouz

This Installation consisted of a piece of painting on silk based on the story of “The conference of the birds” and a disturbing “campy” video and a hermaphrodite figure in the middle of the installation who’s staring at the video. He/She is suppose to represent the 30th bird of the story which is made out cartons and broken speakers, but this time she/he is suicidal, therefore the story might not end as expected in its traditional sense. The whole atmosphere creates an ambivalent yet comic situation, since there is an element of tragedy within every comedy. The story of confrence of the birds narrated through headphones in the shape of the uterus. Storyteller exhibited in a group exhibition At Kunstraum Bellerive, Zurich (2012).

Kamran Behrouz

1 minute audio narration of this installation  is a vague open translation of the ” The conference of the birds”, written by the 13th century Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar.  The magnificent structure of the the book, relies on a clever word play between the words “simorgh” (a mysterious bird in iranian mythology)—similar to phoenix bird —and “si – morgh” which means ‘thirty birds’ in persian language.

Next to the symbolic value of this saga which is crucial to persian literature, I would rather reconsider the story and symbols from their socio-political aspects.

هر که آید خویشتن بیند در او                        جان وتن هم جان و تن بیند در او 

چون شما سی مرغ اینجا آمدید                             سی در این آیینه پیدا آمدید

گر چهل پنجاه مرغ آیید باز                              پرده ای از خویش بگشایید باز

The story narrated by Whitney Sparks and edited by Bálint Rádóczy & Kamran Behrouz.