Mass Hollow

Zory
19 November 2004 to 7 January 2005

Iranian artist Zory creates works that seek to “challenge preconceptions, and to raise questions about dehumanization, human oppression and human alienation” by working in a variety of media including sculptural installation, video and photography, many of them with a performance element.

“In this installation I seek to question the key issues pertaining to the subject of displacement, integration and traumatic experiences that many immigrants go through after being forced to leave their countries.” (Zory)

Three videos were shown. In Masks, a figure takes a close-fitting mask off her face, one after another, frustrating any attempt to glimpse her true identity. In Dancing with the Wall, “Zory returns to the theme of the veil as a paradigmatic emblem of human enclosure and constraint against which the individual inevitably will resist. The brick walls within brick walls combined with the veil are seen here as a malign presences referencing the division of physical, political and psycho-social space: the separation of the inner from the outer world, the domestic from the public, the so-called third world from the so-called first world” (Alex Rotas). Peace Breaking shows the face of a woman struggling to break free from hands covering her open mouth.

This was the first major solo exhibition for Zory, who has exhibited widely in the UK. Her exhibitions to date include Religion, Art and War (London and touring, 2003-2004); Sanctuary: contemporary art & human rights at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2003); A Sense of Place (Cardiff, 2003).