Hayward Gallery
26 October 2022 – 8 January 2023
A line attributed to the renowned Persian poet and Sufi philosopher, Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), My Place is the Placeless, inspires the title of a series of works (2017-2022) the artist Shahpour Pouyan deploys to challenge notions of identity and origin in modern society. In a clapback to the rigid perception of ethnic labelling, Pouyan took a DNA ancestry test that traces his make-up back to thirty-three modern countries spread across the Middle East, Central Asia, Caucasus Mountains, South Asia, Northern Europe and the British Isles. The installation showcases thirty-three exquisite ceramic sculptures resting in a large-scale industrial steel cuboid construction. Each sculpture represents an architectural dome from a region of the artist’s genetic origin.
The installation was part of Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art at the Hayward Gallery in London. Pouyan’s inclusion in this exhibition was noteworthy for the fact that such a rare spotlight on contemporary ceramics included an artist from the so-called Islamic world. For a region where ceramics are paramount, few modern or contemporary artists work with ceramic materials. And while many artists from that region of the world – modern Middle East and West Asia – re engaged with the themes of identity and history, few have made the scale and depth of personal investment so central to the conception of the work as Pouyan does with his DNA in this series.
These sculptures poignantly reference the rich pre-modern architectural heritage from the Persianate, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Anatolian worlds. Of particular note is the tomb of Ya’qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (d. 879), founder of the Saffarid dynasty who chose the site of Gundeshapur, that would become one of the oldest universities in the world. That university was founded by another Shahpour, the Sassanid king Shapur I towards whose legacy Pouyan nods in his sculpture. In contrast, the artist created his sculpture of Iraq based on the imaginary Tower of Babel, where in Genesis it appears as an origin myth and a parable to explain why the world’s peoples speak different languages.
Other locales of Pouyan’s DNA origins include the dome of Zawiyat Ibn Arraq, Beirut’s only remaining Mamluk structure at the entrance to a souk, which points to the movement of peoples from ancient Phoenicians to modern Lebanon. The Tomb of Absalom in Jerusalem is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites from the late Roman period, while Hagia Sophia in Istanbul represents exemplary Byzantine architecture. The sophisticated dome of Maqam Hud denotes Yemen whose significant history and culture in the Arabian Peninsula are frequently overlooked, especially in light of the ongoing wars. Nods to Pouyan’s Jordanian and Syrian lineage are evident in the Mamluk Tomb of Aaron and Beehive Houses that have endured for thousands of years. Mosques and their prominent domes take the viewer to Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates with the Hamouda Al-Masjid, the Ottoman period Byzantine-style Green Dome, and Al Bidya Mosque as the artist is more interested in using unfamiliar examples that convey ideas of diversity where we assume none exists.
One sculpture representing Uzbekistan is inspired by the Mausoleum of Ismail Samani, making a complex story around the subject of a crossroads of cultures. As the first native Persian empire after the Arab-Muslim conquests of the seventh century, it was under the Samanids that a revival of the Persian language as a vehicle for poetry, scholarship and historical chronicles took place. Tajikistan inspires Pouyan to create a short polished dome which is no longer Persian in architectural tradition but evokes a form of dome that was seen all over Iran. Thus a blue sculpture, inspired by The Tomb of Ahmad Sanjar in the medieval city of Merv, reminds the visitor of the erosion of the past; Merv has since been completely washed away. ‘If I, as an Iranian, am related to Turkmenistan, I am related to the place that was burned,’ Pouyan has said.[1] His journey continues with the Aisha-Bibi a mausoleum on the Silk Road that inspires the monumental sculpture of Kazakhstan. It is believed the shape of the dome is partly taken from the conical-shaped structure on the back of the cart Turkic tribes used to carry their belongings, evoking the movement of different Turkic tribes in the region and his own mobile origins. Inspired by Shah-Fazil Mausoleum in Kyrgyzstan, Pouyan’s other sculpture speaks about the lack of native architecture in this geography as Kyrgyzs were never really sedentarised.
Taking its colour from genocide, the only red sculpture in this collection is inspired by the Gandzasar monastery in Armenia, a country which is believed to have the world’s oldest churches. For Pouyan, the name Azerbaijan is reminiscent of the Azargoshnasp fire temple, so his sculpture is based on Ateshgah of Baku (Fire Temple of Baku) which was used as a Hindu and Zoroastrian place of worship.
The artist recalls Afghanistan as Herat thereby including the dome of Gawhar Shad’s Mausoleum, completed under the patronage of the queen-consort of the Timurid ruler in 1438. Pakistan is represented by Badshahi Mosque-inspired work showing an Indian lotus lying on a Perso-Islamic architectural platform symbolizing pre-partition unity. As for the East Asian side of his DNA heritage in countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, Pouyan use stupas to highlight both differences and similarities.
Welsh, Irish and Scottish contributions go back to the Castell Coch, Gallarus Oratory and Ross Dovecote, all of which had been used for hundreds of years before these countries came under English rule, while the Norman Colchester Castle acts as an anti-representation, a stance against imperial England. Finally, the sharply pitched roofs of a Viking-era Borgund Stave Church, Kalmar Castle, and Viking Kings Hall point to his Nordic background.
Pouyan is well known for his metallic helmets modelled after Seljuq, Ottoman, and Safavid examples. His clay sculptures are conceived almost as a parallel series, made in the same size as the helmets, highlighting, in his estimation, the way human beings honoured their legacy of power linked with the conquest of their imperial ancestors. Dome construction, for Pouyan, is a symptom of human arrogance, egotism and imperialism. These domed sculptures also bring to mind a form of Darwinian typology in which the basic dome shape undergoes numerous morphological changes as a result of contact and conflict between various cultures. However, situating these individually crafted and identified ceramic shapes on a cuboid construction challenges many of the conceptual assumptions of twentieth-century modernity and contaminates notions of purism and minimalism. This perfect cube is used as a platform upon which Pouyan displays his ‘personal archaeology’ made of complex cultures, civilizations, histories and colours in response to the micro-aggressive question he and other immigrants face: ‘Where are you from?’ Indeed, in a world where we are facing extreme nationalism, humanitarian catastrophes & divisive challenges that threaten our very existence, isn’t it time to seek the common ground in the hearts of our shared ancestors?
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the artist Shahpour Pouyan for the time he took to discuss and reflect on his project on 30 August 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, room 143 where he was a Middle East Ceramic Fellow.
Citations
[1] Shahpour Pouyan in conversation with the author 30 August 2023.