When I first entered Niknaz’s studio I was confronted by a slightly forlorn looking plywood box about half my height and width with a small hole and a switch on top. (right) Niknaz explained that the box was in fact her interactive work, How we were impressed when we were impressionable and 18 (2006) (video documentation). When the piece is on display, the viewer approaches the box, looks into the hole in the top and flicks on the switch, which reveals grainy footage of a Drag King show on a small screen inside. Niknaz affectionately refers to the piece as her “peep show”. What is interesting about the peep show is that it gives the illusion of a private, personal, encounter as opposed to the strip show or exotic dance bar, which is more open, often with a large audience. By allowing the viewer to interact with the images on a one-to-one basis, Niknaz creates, within the larger context of the public art gallery, the illusion of privacy; a place where the viewer can take stock of their own personal reactions to the hazy, androgynous images in front of them and any impressions left in their mind. The title of the piece points to the important, identity-forming moment of arrival at adulthood. The “we” balances the experience of personal encounter by reassuring the viewer that such identity forming impressions can be a communal experience.
In 2005 Niknaz returned to Iran to visit for the first time. Her visit coincided with the famous 2005 Iranian presidential election leading to the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is said to have won because of populist views; he promised a government of tolerance and friendship despite his hard-line religious conservative standpoint. Niknaz is used to crossing borders and lives fully in whatever place, space and time she may currently find herself. She felt deeply the tensions created by the new assertion of conservative views in Iran. She created the video My Lichen (my stone flower) in response to her experiences in Iran, which screened at the 2006 Flaming Film Festival, and the 2007 Swansea Film Festival. (video) My Lichen (my stone flower ) is the title of an Iranian love song performed by a women that was banned in Iran at the time of Niknaz’s visit. Love songs are considered to be in opposition to conservative religious views in Iran. The video features Niknaz alternatively covering and uncovering her head with a hejab and then an American baseball cap. The audio is the original song, 'Goleh Sangam,' which translates to 'my lichen' and literally translates to 'my stone flower'. In protest and contestation she displays her multiple identities, staring out at the viewer in a reversal of the gaze, then closing her eyes as if to welcome it.
Niknaz explores the gaze of the viewer more explicitly in Don’t mind me (2007) (left). Don’t mind me is an interactive video installation displayed at Showcase 07, Cambridge Galleries, Ontario. (video documentation) A video projection of a transgendered/gender-anonymous person stands and follows the viewer’s motions with movements of the head, “gazing back” in sense, defying the scrutiny of the viewer. In this and most of Niknaz’s work, there is a concern about the way that current discourse on art is often gendered, that is, the reading is based in an understanding of the work as inherently “male” or “female” depending on the artist that created it. This tendency can be traced to feminist efforts in the twentieth century (and up to the present) to bring female artists into the canon of art history. Niknaz is hoping to move beyond such dichotomies to a deeper understanding of the complexities and ambiguities of gender and national identity politics.
Tabitha Minns