Framer Framed

Golrokh Nafisi

Golrokh Nafisi (b. 1981, Isfahan, Iran) is a visual artist based between Amsterdam and Tehran. Graduate of Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam 2010-2014, from 2000-2005, she studied design at Art University of Tehran. In 2019 her work was featured at Prospects & Concepts, part of Art Rotterdam.

Her main artistic practice is to imagine alternative ways of both counting time and locating ourselves; shaping a new imagination for calendars as well as a new imagination for maps, designing the two elements that measure and define our time and space to give us directions in the current moment. Her aesthetic is strongly influenced by popular local handcraft of the cities that she travels to and works in. Nafisi is interested in discovering new forms of collective action, involving bodies and human ideologies.

In 2019, Nafisi made a performance titled Manifesto Against Nostalgia (2019) together with Giulia Crispiani and Ahmadali Kadivar in Teheran, Rome and in Amsterdam. Manifesto Against Nostalgia sets out to question the usage of the word ‘nostalgia’ in relation to the current socio-political rhetoric that relies on the glorification of—and a sort of nostalgia for—a past that never truly existed. The project responds to increasing xenophobic tendencies, that are emerging in a variety of different contexts worldwide.The project responds to increasing xenophobic tendencies that are emerging in a variety of different contexts worldwide. The performance and installation happens in collaboration with local folk musicians, informed by longstanding traditions combining music and enunciation, departing from the universal image of a town crier who shares announcements with a music register. The performance adopts a site-specific linguistic form each time, from manifesto to poetry, from religious ritual to chant. The audience was invited to become an integral part of the event, as witnesses of this nostalgic dissidence.

In 2022, Golrokh Nafisi prestented the book Gham/Tristezza/Sorrow, a work that documents a correspondence between Golrokh Nafisi and Giulia Crispiani, between Tehran and Rome. The book explores the elaboration of mourning through drawing and poetry which transforms pain into a political tool. It is also dedicated to all the mourners of the last two years, those who have lost loved ones in the distance or have not been able to mourn collectively in the days of Covid-19.

In 2023 Golrokh Nafisi was working at Werkplaats Molenwijk, a project space of Framer Framed as an artist in residence to share her work and practice with the neighbourhood in Amsterdam. Her residency inspired the publication, Walvistraan: A Love Story in a Time of Extinction and Isolation. Co-authored together with Ahmadali Kadivar, and published by Framer Framed in 2024.

Links

• Het Parool - The red past of Amsterdam Noord is covered extensively in Walvistraan
• Interview: Golrokh Nafisi by Massy Arts
• Annemarie de Wildt over Manifesto Against Nostalgia (2019)

Exhibitions

11 Nov – 24 Nov 2023

Presentation: Walvistraan

By Werkplaats Molenwijk artist in residence Golrokh Nafisi

Agenda

Magazine

Action Research / Citizenship / Community & Learning /

Z! and Arts of the Working Class: Co-publication of Amsterdam and Berlin street newspapers in collaboration with Framer Framed

Amsterdam Noord / Bookshop Selection / Book Launch / Migration / Molenwijk / Podcast / Residencies /

Podcast: Whale Tears and Mole Tunnels. A Graphic History of the Molenwijk district

Bookshop Selection / Amsterdam Noord / Migration / Molenwijk / Residencies /

Bookshop Selection: Walvistraan by Golrokh Nafisi

Amsterdam Noord / Molenwijk / Residencies /

Golrokh Nafisi is the new Artist in Residence at the Werkplaats Molenwijk