Testimony

Jan. 9, 2018

Majid Biglari

 

Mohsen Gallery

January 12 – February 02, 2018, 4 – 9 pm

 

The experience of others is unexperienceable. Yet the archives are filled with documents, kept for a long time, because they testify to significant or interesting events. Letters, family photos, war documents, evidences of riots and revolts, identity documents, the diaries and personal notes of important figures, are all collected and preserved to give an honest, exact account of events. But they are unable to fulfill this important purpose, like a dead man who is no longer able to talk about the final moments of his life. Truth seems to be hidden under layers of documents, between the intervals of films cuts, and among the piles of family photos, while, in fact, it has evaporated like perfume, no longer accessible to anyone. Documents neither reveal anything nor do they help resolve ambiguities. As a matter of fact, they have a hand in altering the reality of events. Not merely because truth is manipulated and distorted in them, but because they are told, written, and documented by people that have survived the most horrific incidents. How can the few survivors of disasters talk about the events as they really happened, when they have only a partial experience of it? In “Testimony” series, documents are, according to Majid Biglari, things void of meaning; they are sealed and mute; even if they open their lips to talk, there is no truth in their mouths.