Antedoom II

Setareh Shahbazi is best known for her drawings and installations that are primarily based on found visual material that is digitally manipulated by the artist. Although the human figure has always featured prominently in her compositions, often drawing from old portraits and photographs, the artist’s more recent output has positioned the human figure, and increasingly the body, at the centre of contemporary image making practices that far surpass the medium of photography. | “Antedoom” emerges from her inability to grapple with violence inflicted on the body that is not only captured through the production of images but also in their circulation. Conceived around a litany of terms, including wound, scar, orthopaedics, bones and chemical substances, Antedoom (2017) is her way of translating the unrepre- sentable brutality of our daily newsfeeds. In the work, she focuses on radiations ability to penetrate the body, both in its use within medicine as well as its deployment at border inspections through body scanners and other forms of surveillance. | Shahbazi’s site-specific installation of “Antedoom II” for Tarahane Azad features a visual component and sound elements that convey a sense of vulnerabiltiy through the shift of borders between the private and the public body.