THE FUTURE STATE #01 is the first event in a series of open experimental research roundtables devised by the current Goethe at LUX resident artist Anahita Razmi. The evening will start with a screening of Maziar Bahari's documentary An Iranian Odyssey (2010), which addresses the history of Iran under the governance of Mohammad Mossadegh and the unfolding of the 1953 CIA coup.
Taking part in the first roundtable will be Iranian sound artist Bijan Moosavi, the editor of Militaant Maziar Razi and journalist Arron Reza Merat.
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While considering Iran’s political history and present, the roundtable aims to open up a range of topics in relation to: the position(s) of a contemporary Iranian Left vis-à-vis global Leftist tendencies, the relevance of foreign powers when shaping 'states', the opportunities and challenges for activists, artists, and writers working from a diasporic position, the possibilities of utopias and the potentials of repetition as tragedy or as farce.
As part of her Goethe at LUX residency, Anahita Razmi considers the future of The Islamic Republic of Iran as seen from the perspective of a diverse range of diasporic communities. Her project entitled
THE FUTURE STATE references the work of Iranian Marxist Mansoor Hekmat, who is buried in close proximity to Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery. Hekmat was a theorist, revolutionary and leader of the Iranian worker-communist movement, active in Iran until 1981 and in Kurdistan and the UK afterwards until his death in 2002.
The experimental roundtable setups will also try to test out different ways of constructing a discussion: with reference to Herodotus “The Histories”, book 1, chapter 133 (“If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk [...]”) , the series will culminate in a dead drunk
THE FUTURE STATE roundtable.
Bijan Moosavi is an Iranian sound artist. His practice takes place at the intersection between the ‘Iranian’ and the ‘Contemporary’. Along various trends of ‘Globalization’ within the cultural narrative of the post-revolutionary Iran, and by means of an investigatory-reflective-fictionalizing process, his work often materializes in diverse forms of aural and visual configurations.
Maziar Razi is the editor of the website Militaant, spokesperson of the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency (IRMT), and a political activist in the Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network. He publishes internationally and wrote several books and pamphlets in Farsi on Marxism and working class organisational issues.
Arron Reza Merat has covered Iran from both Tehran and London for several publications including the Economist, the Guardian, the Telegraph and Vice News. He now works as a political aide for the Labour Party focused on international development and foreign policy.
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