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Haji Firouzs, 2007, 07:58 min., HD, Video
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Haji Firouz

Written, Directed, and Performer
Shahram Entekhabi

Camera
Steffen Koehn

Costumes & Make up
Martina Schöne-Radunski

Visual Foreign Correspondents, Issue 2

18 December 2007- 14 January 2008
Sharam Entekhabi, Iran
Title: Haji Firouz

In collaboration with The Globalised Crystal Ball we are proud to announce the second issue of Visual Foreign Correspondents. VFC is an independent platform in which 11 distinguished artists from around the world are invited each month to give their personal visual commentary on events and situations from their locally situated perspective. Their works especially created for urban screens and online platforms. This project will give people in the streets of Amsterdam a brief window into other regions, peoples and other kinds of imagination.
The work will be launched during the seminar event of the Globalised Crystal Ball in the conference space. An introduction to the work will be given, making a connection to the seminar and the ideas of the artist.
Independent from the seminar the work will then feature on the urban screen outside the ‘Balie’ every night for a month, on the The Contemporary Art Screen, at the Zuidas and in 11-Reatuarant Bar Club, part of Post-CS, museum of modern art, Amsterdam.
These screens will be in relationship to a specially designed website and ‘Oog’. The VFC website will show the work and contextualize it with political, social and cultural background information. Furthermore it will give information about the project and a possibility for the audience to interact.
The work will also feature in ‘OOG’, a commentary and opinion platform that is part the online edition of De Volkskrant, a major Dutch daily national newspaper. Here the work will feature for a week as part of the continuing series of artist commentaries.

Haji Firouz, 2007

In Iran Haji Firouz is a clownesque character in blackface, traditionally heralding the Persian New Year: Nowruz. With song and dance he spreads good cheer and inaugurates the festive season. Set within a busy shopping street in West-Berlin, Entekhabi enacts his own version of Haji Fairuz. However, his continuous efforts and increasingly exaggerated gestures to attract attention and become included within a commodified urban setting, are widely ignored by the busy Christmas shoppers. Their own preoccupation with performing the festive season themselves, by means of consumption, disallows them to see, let alone consume, an element which seems out-of-place and disrupts the regular flow of goods and people. Entekhabi’s Haji Firouz challenges normative behavioural patterns by pushing social and racial boundaries; it becomes clear within these parameters, that participation in a particular system, is based on exclusivity and conformity

(Italy)
In Iran l’Haji Firouz è un personaggio clownesco dal volto nero, tradizionalmente portatore del Nuovo Anno persiano: Nowruz. Con canti e danze sparge il buon augurio e dà avvio alla stagione delle feste. Posizionato in una strada affollata di negozi nel West-Berlin, Entekhabi crea la propria versione di Haji Fairuz. E comunque i suoi continui sforzi ed i gesti sempre più esagerati, per attirare l’attenzione ed essere incluso in uno spazio urbano commerciale, sono ampiamente ignorati dagli affaccendati acquirenti del Natale.
La loro preoccupazione nel comportarsi come la stagione festiva richiede, in termini di consumo, li rende incapaci di vedere, permettendo loro solo di consumare, un elemento che sembra essere fuori luogo e disturbare il normale flusso di beni e persone. L’Haji Firouz di Entekhabi sfida gli schemi del normale atteggiamento forzando i confini sociali e razziali; diventa chiaro, attraverso questi parametri, che la partecipazione in un particolare sistema si basa sull’esclusività ed il conformismo.

www.visualcorrespondents.com

Screen locations
De Balie: Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam
www.debalie.nl

CASZ: Zuidplein, Amsterdam
www.caszuidas.nl

11/Restaurant bar club: Oosterdokskade 3-5, Amsterdam
www.ilove11.nl

www.volkskrant.nl/oog

Visual Foreign Correspondents
Artistic director: Nanette Hoogslag
Editors: David Garcia, Nat Muller, Petra Heck and Eric Kluitenberg

For more information please contact Nanette Hoogslag at Visual Foreign Correspondents is made possible by Amsterdamse Fonds voor de Kunsten, VSB, De Balie en het Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst

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

Haji Firouz © Shahram Entekhabi 2007