Bookshop Selection: Walvistraan by Golrokh Nafisi

Walvistraan: A Love Story in a Time of Extinction and Isolation by Golrokh Nafisi and Ahmadali Kadivar (2024) Page preview 60-61

Bookshop Selection: Walvistraan by Golrokh Nafisi

Following on from their residency in Werkplaats Molenwijk, Golrokh Nafisi and Ahmadali Kadivar present their new publication, Walvistraan: A Love Story in a Time of Extinction and Isolation. This illustrated story is a poetic and multilayered narrative offering a unique approach to understanding across cultures, generations, and species.

Journey into the heart of Molenwijk, in Amsterdam-Noord, through this evocative graphic story that intertwines personal and collective histories with contemporary moments. Narrated through the eyes of a protagonist intertwined with her community’s roots, the story explores love, loss, displacement, and resistance.

Golrokh Nafisi and Ahmadali Kadivar’s Walvistraan: A Love Story in a Time of Extinction and Isolation is an exploration of Molenwijk’s underground tunnels, secret libraries, and the rich historical tapestry of a neighbourhood shaped by activism, cultural diversity, and environmental change. A story of the resilience and unity of its inhabitants — human and non-human — amidst the forces of modernity, as they reclaim connections to their land of origin and history.

Order
You can order the book (including a free poster) through the Framer Framed webshop or via Idea Books.

Contributors
Authors: Golrokh Nafisi, Ahmadali Kadivar
Graphic Design: Oreri—Iniziativa Editoriale
Publisher: Framer Framed

Specifications
€25
Text and colour illustrations
Riso-printed in a limited edition of 150 copies
72 pp
Poster included
15 × 20 cm | paperback
English, 2024
ISBN: 9789083079387

Golrokh Nafisi, Walvistraan (2023). Installation at Werkplaats Molenwijk, Amsterdam. Photo: © Lina van Idsert / Framer Framed

About

Golrokh Nafisi is a visual artist whose artistic practice involves designing alternative ways of documenting time and location, shaping a new imagination of time and space to give us direction in the present. Nafisi is interested in discovering new forms of collective action involving bodies and human ideologies.

Ahmadali Kadivar is a writer, researcher and the director of Sedākhāne, the most robust archive of folk music in Iran, building resources in understanding the literary, historical and anthropological aspects of folk music culture.

Walvistraan is the result of a project by Golrokh Nafisi in collaboration with Ahmadali Kadivar during their residency in Werkplaats Molenwijk in 2023. Walvistraan was commissioned and published by Framer Framed.