crude education 2024 - ongoing

Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program group exhibition, hosted at Westbeth Gallery, NY, NY.

An archival video produced with the artist’s family footage- documenting first graders’ inaugural school day in 1996 on the northern outskirts of Isfahan, Iran- and National Archives Catalog, capturing British Petroleum’s first prosperous oil strike in the Middle East in Masjed Soleyman at the foothills of Zagros Mountains in 1908.

crude education frames the mundane as
monumental using a poetic visual lexicon and a micro/macro juxtaposition. it points to the genesis of Ptero-imperialism in the Middle East and draws parallels between extraction, displacement, political ideology, and education. This project is also a meditation on documentary film production, from the silent black-and-white stationary camera to the user-friendly camcorder for recording the intimate of the everyday.

The video is part of an ongoing multi-media project that began during my Fellowship at the Whitney ISP which will continue to expand and evolve.

You may request a private link to the video.