Natascha Sadr-Haghighian | Exhibition visit & talk
Ausstellungsbesuch & Gespräch

2023 | 01.07.2023

2023 | 01.07.2023

Now that I can hear you my eyes hurt (Tumult)| Lenbachhaus

“The question of collectivity recurs throughout Natascha Sadr Haghighian‘s work. She regards her mostly installation-based works as spaces for a sensual renegotiation of community, which call on us to understand migration as a constituent part of existence. A collaborative working method and ramified, at times deliberately obscured authorship are characteristic of her approach. For her work for the German pavilion in Venice in 2019, she adopted the pseudonym Natascha Süder Happelmann - a condensation of the accumulatedmisspellings and autocorrections of her Iranian name - and wore a papier-mâché rock on her head that demonstrated the absurdity of national representation with a sense of comedy.

„Die Frage nach Kollektivität zieht sich durch Natascha Sadr Haghighians Werk. Ihre meist installativen Arbeiten versteht sie als Räume einer sinnlichen Neuverhandlung von Gemeinschaft, die auffordern, Migration als Teil des Daseins zu begreifen. Kollaborative Arbeitsweisen und humorvolles Unterwandern repräsentativer Rollen sind charakteristisch für ihr Vorgehen. Im Rahmen ihrer Arbeit für den deutschen Pavillon in Venedig 2019 trug sie außer dem Pseudonym Natascha Süder Happelmann – ein Kondensat der Fehlschreibungen und Autokorrekturen ihres iranischen Namens – einen Stein aus Pappmaché auf dem Kopf. Ein Stein, der die nationale Repräsentation konsequent und komisch ad absurdum führte.

The whistle is at the center of the works Natascha Sadr Haghighian is presenting at the Lenbachhaus. The simple signaling instrument is used both by authorities and as a means of protest against them. The whistle demands attention and embodies urgency without taking a stand for or against the existing order. In this way, it makes order renegotiable and becomes a poetic tool. The large-format banner “Now that I can hear you my eyes hurt
(Tumult)”, which lends the exhibition its title, is dedicated to the activist Hassan Numan, who died last year. Together with others, he deployed whistles as instruments of solidarity in the fight against deportation. A tumultuous feat of collective action.”

(https://www.lenbachhaus.de/en/visit/exhibitions/details/natascha-sadr-haghighian-1)