Theater and Performance Artist, Researcher Shahmiri Azade

A research-based durational performance project

The project is artistic research for creating a solo performance piece. The performance is tended to be a durational performance that studies the representations of 'nature' and natural elements in the collection of texts from Iranian plays. The narratives that represent ‘nature’ will be selected and used as materials for the performance. From papyrus to paper, natural elements have had a crucial role to help to generate and documenting human thoughts. In this project nature as a concept as well as a material would be explored. Through tracing ‘nature’ in the texts, the system of knowledge about nature would be recognized that is implanted in the published creative texts. The project requires a research phase to select the relevant texts. Then the collected narratives will be re-written by the researcher/performer on pieces of recycled paper to be used for/in the performance. In this project, I intend to transform the papers to what they are essentially made of, nature, while they carry narratives about nature. The idea is to plant the papers in the soil after washing them during the performance. Therefore, the tasks of re-writing, re-reading out loud, re-locating, and recycling the narratives take place at different times. The first and the last parts occur before and after the physical time of the performance. However, the performance would end by planting all the papers in transparent soil containers, the cooperation of soil, paper, and water would last as long as the containers are being kept. By installing the container in a certain location, the performance spectators, as well as the new visitors, will be able to visit the installation and follow the slow disfiguration of the materials. During burring /planting the papers, the performer would add other natural-based objects which are personal and of importance to her such as a letter, a photograph or seeds of plants, combining them with the narratives of the past to create an alternative for the future.