Teazy

Semco Salehi
June 14  —  July 03, 2019
Pasio

Since human beings started to make tools, their social existence and the relationships that stemmed from them changed for good. Sharp and pointy objects were not merely hunting tools: they were “relational” and “social” instrument as well as a possibility for changing destiny. A knife, or its Persian slang equivalent, “Teazy,” is an object that has remained from the “means ownership” mentality, in which power dominated ethics and elegance.
Exhibited in Pasio, “Teazy” is a photograph and video installation by Semco Salehi, a photographer and filmmaker based in Toronto. In “Teazy,” Salehi represents various realistic images of knives, each of which has its own tale to tell. Salehi’s fantastic and obviously masculine approach to knives comes from his personal interest in urban culture and the old parts of town and the status of “teazy” among hooligans of the past. Hooligans were typically violent, ignorant young troublemakers who saw power not in words and just conduct but in cold weapons such as fighting knives and daggers. “Teazy” was a weapon used for defense, wielded in the hands of gang members as a pen: its blade wrote the story of one thug on the body of another or those of unlucky random people during street fights and acts of revenge.
Intending to depict the hidden stories of the relationships between people, Salehi deploys his camera to explore the behavior of humans, legends, and story characters, much like an anthropologist. Migration and displacement are tangible notions of our time that play an important role in his photographs and films.

Installation
Series