Sara Zaltash
1. Sweetmud explores the internalization of prohibition, exhilarations that mimic freedom and the longing for identity and identification that is trapped between these two.
A sequence of seven actions loops back to its origin seven times.
Sweeping coal dust. Marking difference. Ecstatic rebellion. Wine cleansing. Prayer whirling. Fall. And redress.
Introducing materials and motifs that perform throughout the trilogy: seven red wine bottles, a domestic chador, black coal, ecstatic song, and green, the colour of Islam.
Performed at Basement Arts Project Leeds (2011), Owl Barn Residency Gloucestershire (2013), Peep Anatomy Edinburgh Fringe (2013), Milk Bar Bristol (2014), Month of Performance Art Berlin (2015), Gallerie KuB Leipzig (2015), Extrapool Netherlands (2016).
Tuul /// طول /// "duration"
Three interconnected performance actions.
98 minutes /// 24 hours /// 7 days
Performed annually for one lifetime.
Tuul – a trilogy harvests evocative personal moments from Sara Zaltash’s experiences as a British-Iranian woman growing up through rock and roll, religion and cultural transgression. The word, "tuul", means "duration" in Farsi. The artwork consists of three separate durational pieces that together form a trilogy. Extending the duration of the artwork to encompass the duration of an adult lifetime, Sara plans to perform the trilogy in its entirety every year for the rest of her life.
Through song, action, ritual, hospitality, textiles and the Persian language, Tuul deals broadly with how Iranian culture is portrayed and experienced in the UK, the surveillance and voyeurism of Iranian women, and the lesser-examined role that matriarchs play in the oppression of women in Iranian society. The work is populist and spiritual, bolshy and brave, it disarms with humour, has an endearingly poignant message and memorably sensual aesthetic.
From 2011-2013, the individual works in Tuul were commissioned by and developed with Basement Arts Project (Leeds), East Street Arts (Leeds), Something Human (London), Anatomy (Edinburgh) and The Owl Barn (Gloucestershire). In November 2014, Sara Zaltash performed the entire trilogy together for the first time at the Milk Bar, former home to performance collective Residence, in Bristol.
2. God Gave Rock and Roll… stitches together and sings out the agendas of love and oppression that are trapped between God, women and music.
A 24-hour performance install-action. Sara is dressed in a wedding dress and chador. She sits, embroiders and sings behind a black gauze veil that separates her from the rest of the place. She has her comforts with her, fruit, sweets, teas, scents and her colourful bird sits in its cage; the atmosphere is mystically and domestically Persian. Sara speaks, sews and sings exclusively in Farsi, to herself, her bird and her visitors. She offers hospitality to her visitors on the other side of the veil.
Sara has only one message: ‘God gives rock and roll to you...!’
When it is time for azan, the Islamic call to prayer, Sara cuts a hole in the veil and calls all the faithful to prayer, to praise greatness, Allah Akbar! Immediately afterwards, looking out through the whole in the veil, she sings Kiss’ song, ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’. This call and song action occurs six times in 24 hours. Throughout the 24 hours, a CCTV camera records her and a widescreen television displays her on the other side of the veil, mutely maintaining a hidden agenda.
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Performed at inXclusion East Street Arts Leeds (2012), Something Human @ The Terminal London (2013), The Milk Bar Bristol (2014), Creature Festival Kaunas (2015), The Sisterhood Glastonbury Festival (2016).
3. Vell – ول – Loose. For seven hours everyday for seven days, Sara stitches a tapestry.
The chador is tied around her neck, a noose keeping her in place. She prays, she persists, she dances, she sings along to pre-revolutionary Persian pop-songs. She wears her wedding dress and light hijab.
Watch this performance only ever at a distance, through gallery windows or via a live stream.
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Performed online within Owl Barn Residency Gloucestershire (2013), The Milk Bar Bristol (2014), The Island Bristol (2015).
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With thanks to The Sisterhood-Glastonbury Festival, Extrapool (Nijmegen), The Island (Bristol), Month of Performance Art Berlin, Gallerie KuB Leipzig, all of the beautiful team at Creature Festival of Live Art (Kaunas), Bruce Davies and Basement Arts Project, Something Human, the Owl Barn Residency, Aitch Giles and Ali Maloney, East Street Arts, Adam Young and Indivisible, Sam Slater, Maxwell Rushton, Charlotte Hopper, Jenny Duffy, the Arbuthnotts, Edward Rapley, Gavin Rogers, Sam Ford, Faye Prior, Shima Farahmand, Sebastian Bechinger-English, April Wernham, Jamie Bracken Lobb, Taha Hamed, Alice Holland, Ria Jade Hartley, Dr Ali Zaltash, Ms Goli Zaltash, Maman Sadat, Amir Bagheri, Eddy, Eva and Austin.
