“Blood, Light and Fireworks” is a seven-minute-long video piece inspired by the romantic and metaphorical approach to political events. Aside from the economical and numerical outcomes of political happenings, there is the experience of a collective trauma. This collective experience, whether one has been directly present in the incident or not, is a part of what one inherits from their nation. This inheritance is passed by hazy memories, poems, and their constant representation in media. They are materialized in monuments of war and revolution, in street names, in portraits of martyrs around the city.
Initial steps in the structuring of the video started while making collages of pieces of my writings. As those were artifacts of my relationships in different parts of life, I intentionally blended their memory with fiction, taking them through a process of romanticization. I tore the writings apart to the extent of excluding any specific reference. With every time of rewriting, the result became something more fractured and violent.
The video starts with closeups of lights which are installed in squares and streets of Tehran. These colorful and sometimes blinding lights form a part of the cityscape. On the occasions of the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution or religious Eids, the city is captivated by them. They are like the flowers and fireworks, and other elements which I have used in my work; a part of the statecraft. As much as they are 'enlightenments' to night and darkness, their overly saturated color and luminosity blind the eye to anything else around them.