Title: Davood and I
Medium: Acrylic on woven paper
Year: 2008
Dimensions: 30cm by 30cm each
Images will be posted soon

I was a teenager during the early years of the Iran-Iraq war. 1983 was
my last year in Iran. I was a 9th grader. One of my classmates was
Davood Chizari. He came from a very humble working class background.
Their type was the backbone of the revolution (Poor large families,
devoted muslims); not the type I hanged out with. His family name
comes from the Chizar village one of the many that were swallowed into
Metropolitan Capital. That year the war truly escalated as Iran
stopped the Iraqi advance and began its own counter offense. Cajoled
by the leadership and their families, many children volunteered to go
to the front. Davood had friends at the front. He kept missing class
to attend their funerals. I knew he would leave school soon and go to
the front.

Summer 1983 I left Iran for good. 22 years later, back with my wife in
Tehran, I followed her as she did her research on the Iran-Iraq war
and its aftermath. She mentioned visiting a cemetery in Chizar. My
heart sank. I new I would find Davood there. What I did not count on
was to see the name Chizari all over that cemetery. There must have
been dozens of his brother, cousins, and relatives interred there. It
took a while but in the end I found his grave from his photograph
above it.

The painting of him is from that photo and has taken three years to
finish. I have had about six different attempt. In the end, the only
way I finish it was to do a self-portrait the way I look today 25
years after the two of us last saw each other. In needed it as a
marker-to measure what he missed out on. The grave lists his date of
death and it is almost the same day I boarded my plane to leave Iran.
We finished 9th grade, I went to europe, he went to the front.

The Event

Film screening and discussion | Filmvorführung und Gespräch
Plastic Flowers Never Die (2008) by Roxanne Varzi
A film on the cultural aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988, written, directed and produced by Roxanne Varzi, University of California Irvine faculty, currently a fellow at the Wissenschaftkolleg/Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the author (in English).
Wed., 23.07.2008, 20:00

uqbar
a project by | ein Projekt von Dorothee Bienert, Dortje Drechsel, Marina Sorbello, Antje Weitzel
Schwedenstrasse 16 | D -13357 Berlin | T + 49 (0)30 460 69 107
projectspace@uqbar-ev.de | http://projectspace.uqbar-ev.de
U8/U9/M13 Osloer Straße
Fr., Sa., Sunday Wedding (2.12.07) 14:00 – 19:00 and by appointment | und nach Vereinbarung
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der DEGEWO

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