ABOLITION NOW!
“Oil, Bananas, Prisons”
Projection mapped installation on textile by Gralin Hughes and Sara Zia Ebrahimi
Created out of a collaboration with my wife Sara Zia Ebrahimi; Oil, Bananas, Prisons utilizes traditional Persian textiles, photo transfer imagery and video projection mapping to weave together historical points in space and time from Iran to Guatemala, to immigrant detention centers in the US. The hand-sewn tapestry is a small constellation of historic images interspersed with spots of video projection of reworked archival footage along with an ambient soundscape, bordered by traditional Persian textile patterns. The piece makes connections between the US overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in its first CIA-led coup (since used as a model to destabilize dozens of other countries that had been gaining economic and cultural independence), with the destabilization of Guatemala, and the influence of private-owned detention centers on current immigration policies. These seemingly randomly interspersed moments in space and time are all linked in creating this current political moment; this piece visually captures and explores the webs of time and history in creating current political realities.
This installation was part of Abolition Now!, a multidisciplinary exhibition that included video, mixed media, prints, photography, and projection by a wide variety of artists and community organizations and took place at the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia.