Friday, June 3, 2022 17:00 - 18:30
University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich
online (zoom)
Panteha Abareshi, A Mistranslation, 2022, mixed media, silicone, rubber, steel, titanium, foam, thermoplastic, 27 x 23 x 27 inches Photo by Ruben Diaz.
Image description: A medical chair with legs and arms covered by green and pink bandages. Attached to the chair through colourful telephone cords, is a leg brace that rests on a convoluted (egg-crate) white seat cushion that sits on a foam square pink mat. Under the chair is a white foot prosthesis made of silicone.
Panteha Abareshi is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, currently contemplating the prosthetic, and the simultaneous abstraction and mechanization of the body. About their practice, Abareshi says: "My work is rooted in my existence as a body with sickle cell zero beta thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes debilitating pain, and bodily deterioration that both increase with age. Being a chronically ill body has shaped my experience into one that is extremely, and highly isolating. The nuances of disability and chronic illness are lost on the average able-bodied individual, and the marginalization, erasure and violence that I have endured from it alone is devastating. In combination with my personal notions of gender, racial and sexual identity, I am fully immersed in otherness. There is so little discussion surrounding this, and little to no exploration of these topics in contemporary work, and I aim to push against that lack of representation. In my practice I am warping concrete, physical forms into highly disembodied abstractions. Through my work I aim to discuss the complexities of living within a body that is highly monitored, constantly examined, and made to feel like a specimen. Taking images that are recognizable as human forms, and reducing them to gestural forms is a juxtaposition of my own bodies objectification, and dissection." Learn more on the artist's website: www.panteha.com.