Bajazzo and Haji firouz © Shahram Entekhabi 2007

Bajazzo and Haji firouz, 2 channel-video installation	Bajazzo and Haji firouz, photographs
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Haji Firouz

Haji Firouz is a figure from Persian pre-Islamic times, that's original meaning is forgotten. But the new Islamic society continued to make use of this figure - as a kind of empty shell that they kept alive because of nostalgical reasons and the integrational function of the figure as such.
They never changed Haji Firouz's meaning. Haji Firouz as such reminds us of e.g. medieval practices when the simple people invented parodies of the aristocratic ceremonies. The most fascinating thing to me are the words that Haji Firouz uses.:

Flip flip flip,
When I flip here, someone's to complain here
When I flip there, there's also someone to complain.
A black slave like me has to be very patient.

Master, Master, take up your head
Master, Master, look at me
Master, Master, you are as sweet as sugar
My Master, why don't you laugh?'

My intention to use the figure Haji Firouz as such is an attempt to parody the Islamic practice by integrating the Haji into a completely new context of the Western world. Hai Firouz remains miracles and is full of secrets, although on the surface he just looks like a fool.

The main premise of my work is the transportation of ideas via live art and performative elements, fusing videos, architecture, sculptures, drawings and photographs. In particular, my work is always framed within an urban setting and inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s writings on the 19th century concept of the Flaneur and diffusing the idea of urban space being reserved for the practice and performance of the white, middle class, hetero-sexual male.
Instead I choose to highlight those individuals who would ordinarily be marginalized, made invisible or forced into self-'ghettoisation' from the urban domain such as migrant communities and their culture, particularly the communities from the Middle East and their diaspora. The question of visibility and invisibility, therefore, has been a situation that I actively explore within my practice; mostly with reference to my earlier video work.

Since the video work "i?" (2004), I started a big series with the so-called “migrant-figure” that embodies clichés of the West on behaviors of various migrants, especially those from the Mid-East. While women from this region are often seen as the oppressed with all freedom taken away and forced by their fundamentalist men or fathers or family to wear the chador, men are seen as the aggressor, the potential fundamentalist, the terrorist.
My migrant figure is a somewhat minimalist version of what Western Europeans imagine as the migrant (the so called “guest worker”): a cheap suit, old-fashioned shoes, and a suitcase. With Islamic Star (2005), I started a new series, with new figures of migrants, where the conception of the figures is radicalized: they are no longer the almost invisible friendly helper of the German reconstruction. Some of these figures are having a huge auto-aggression, burning themselves, firing a grenade next to themselves, also meeting the various prejudices:
In "Islamic star" (2005), I work with the Islamic fundamentalist, in "Mehmet" (2005), with the Kurdish activist, in "Miguel" (2005) with the Guerilla-guy and in "Mladen" (2005), the criminal from the Balkans…

The hyperbolism and exaggeration within these figures, have quite a potential of humour in it, with all there muscles and masculinity, there are anyway some kind of sad clowns. This leads us to the work I made for the Visual correspondent project that introduces a particular clown figure from the Middle East, the Haji Firouz. In Iran,
Shahram Entekhabi
Dez. 2007

Written, Directed & Performed by
Shahram Entekhabi

photography
Oli Keinath

Camera
Steffen Koehn

Costumes & Make up
Martina Schöne-Radunski
Manuela Pott, Berlin

Produced by: Shahram Entekhabi
Co-production: Fine Arts Unternehmen AG [Zug, CH] - www.fineartsunternehmen.com

Bajazzo and Haji firouz © Shahram Entekhabi 2007