Bewitched
Video, Poem, Installation January 2024Bewitched examines the jarring experience of being exposed to a constant loop of violence through everyday life experiences and news. As I migrate and live outside of my homeland, the differences in my daily life and those affected directly by geopolitical oppression make the contradictory versions of reality incomprehensible. The poetic narrative of the video explores feeling overwhelmed, guilty, and lost in finding meaningful and impactful ways of resistance.
Drawing upon astrology and the ancient ritual of the winter solstice, this audio-visual work tells the story of Mercury being the guide of this journey, knowing and the one who travels and communicates through the underworld and the above, she brings the message of hope, that although the longest night of the year (winter solstice = Cheleh) is coming, it will pass and afterwards spring will be on its way.
bewitched
calls like the melody of sirens
empty skeletons covered by ghosts of ashes
grey and rotten
they shine and trick you
bewitch you
the raging cold burns us all
corpses of the flowers that never bloomed,
the lake that is as unstable as a foggy morning view
red like blood
they spill like a cut-opened pomegranate
seeds and maroon flowing
I wait for the full moon
and it’s his sign to come this month
knocking on my window
impatient,
under the lake
I see the ghosts in the rivers of underwater
terrified, guilty, helpless
clutching his hand
gasping for the air of the earth
“you need to feel sometimes”
“let the water flow in you”
-what was the lesson again?
by the first breath of morning
groggy, sore, and tired
I hear them
calls like the melody of sirens
see them
empty skeletons covered by ghosts of ashes
grey and rotten
shiny enough to trick you
bewitch you
bewitched again
light the candle and hold the night awake
he tells me that the harshest colds of Cheleh
will bloom into a beautiful spring
so
I hold the night awake
and guard my thresholds,
count my days,
in hopes of the fire of sade
that it will melt the icy spikes of numbness
bewitched by the glamour
bewitched and numb
in his shadow
retrograding
the shiny surface of the deep dark mirror
blinks at me
Thank you for embracing me in your light of wisdom
Please accompany my heart
I am afraid
all my empathy,
love
sadness
they are slipping into the spinning vertigo
I am afraid of the songs
the glittery ashes
the creeping hand of the mirror
to get bewitched again