Nazanin Noori’s artist book The Echo of Protest Is Distant to the Protest is a continuation of her first solo exhibition at CCA Berlin in 2024, in which the artist used sound, sculpture, and text to engage with the psychological aftermath of the protests that have been directed against the Islamic Republic of Iran since the death of Jina Amini in 2022.
At the heart of the book is a visual poem in English that expands upon the sculptural work shown in the exhibition and overwrites a ritual Shiite chant ای کوفیان بی وفا (Farsi: “O you Kufans, you faithless ones”). This lament about the Battle of Karbala – a tragic event in Shiite history commemorated during the month of Muharram – was written by Shabab Mousavi and first performed in 2012 at religious ceremonies in Yazd, Iran. During the Jina Amini protests, it was used as a political slogan.
In Nazanin Noori’s graphic-dialogic polyptych, the Farsi word-sculptures form the chorus of patriarchy, to which the English poem responds with the artist’s subversive feminist commentary. An accompanying booklet contains three essays that contextualize Noori’s work from the perspectives of social anthropology, sound studies, political science, and contemporary art.
