24.06.2023 – Performance platform festival – Lublin – Poland
“The start of Kimia Nasirian’s performance was accompanied by confusion. There was nothing and no one in the place where the performance was to take place. The moment all the people lined up in the room, the artist emerged from the crowd and began to tell us a very personal story. The light was pointed at two ends of the narrow space, initially not illuminating the artist. Kimia spoke freely to us, and after a while she began to remove her rings and put them on the floor. Later she searched for something in a loose, large bag, from which she finally took out her wallet. She pulled out two passport photos from it: on one she had her hijab on, and on the other she
did not. She pasted the photos on two opposite walls of the room. She slowly began to change
into her new costume, which was a light-colored top and athletic shorts. In her narration, Kimia carefully introduced us to the cultural threads of her Iranian background, unfamiliar to many. She also touched on her knowledge of multiple languages and explained the situation in which she
had to learn Arabic at school in Iran. There, children learn the language from the Quran. The artist stressed that children have to clash with concepts that are too difficult for them, often abstract. The performer explained to us an important part of customs related to death.
Into the ear of the deceased someone, usually family, whispers a phrase:, “Listen and understand <name>, daughter/son <father’s name>”.In mid-sentence, Kimia was interrupted by sounds reminiscent of airport situations, and then the sentence was repeated many times:, “Listen and understand Kimia, daughter of Muhammad Hussein. The artist began to run around the room.At first she ran hard into the wall and, bouncing off it, started running the other way.Slowly, under the influence of fatigue, the performer’s movement became more chaotic.At some point, there was also a loud sound of a siren.Kimia began to take small breaks in her running.At the end, she sank to the floor, and after a while she returned to loose conversation with us, joked and announced that the performance had just ended.”
Maria Grzybowska