Snail riding home (2014)

 

 

“Snail riding home” was the title of an installation element of a group show, exhibited in A|B|Contemporary gallery in Zurich (2014). The sculpture as a central piece was made out of a mannequin that I earlier carried during one of my performances. It was supposed to be an ambivalent self-portrait infused with self-irony, but surprisingly has been read and interpreted differently by the Swiss media, thus adding a new dimension to my own research. It raises the question, how do we categorize racially ambiguous and displaced bodies? And how much of this emanates from our own projections? And if they’re sub-altern, do we let them speak or do we rather speak for them? An intimate and disturbing sculpture in which a snail grew skin on its own dress; there is no border between her dress and her own skin. Two strings made out of skin are attached to a wall full of paintings which she carries like a backpack. “Going home” was written on the wall, and a video of endoscopy projected on it. One painting had an anonymous ID card on it which says “my body, my homeland.”

Kamran Behrouz

Kamran Behrouz