The Curtain of the Temple Tore into Two
Metal bathtubs, artificial Christmas tree, black glossy enamel
152x182x270 cm
2014
Seher Tareen’s Collection
My work involves the documentation and critique of lived urban experience.
I find the city full of patterns; part of my process is to speculate about the causes and purposes of what might otherwise be considered arbitrary phenomenon. My processes arrange the environment in a particular manner, thus giving me more control over it. To accomplish this I design systems based on constants such as my own steps.
Since there is an interactive relationship between the social and the spatial, architecture becomes an effective metaphor for the structures of power that underlie it. I use these motivations to generate alternative analysis of the city.
The constant process of demolition and construction that the city undergoes fascinates me because this state of flux creates an architectural palimpsest in which the unknown emerges to contest the administrative architectural will. I photograph these trivialized contested spaces of representation, which are made memorable by symbolic means, as deserted crime scenes. These exercises are experiments in making visible that which is traditionally made invisible.
Alam graduated from the National College of Arts with a major in painting, and is the recipient of the Fulbright Award; pursing an MFA at Parsons the new School for Design in New York.
Image Courtesy | Julius John Alam