Arash Hanaei & Abrie Fourie

'I Play with Gods, Gods Play with Me' + 'Where-We-R (Sikh in Delhi)'

Arash represents the young generation of photographers from the Arab world to have come out Post 2000. Arash had a more 'artistic' outtake at photography. Using alternate means to represent his personal history and culture. The efforts to pursue a aesthetic which was not necessarily implicitly related to political/cultural scenarios of Iran in a quasi-documentative mode...Arash amply showed the aspiration among young Arab photographers to employ a more creatively radical approach in their modes of ideations and Representation than to bend down to a cultural burden which popular foreign cultural notions would have them carry.

As a photographer Abrie displayed a highly intuitive + intentionally noncerebral approach. Talented to his fingernails his photographing technique itself showed prodigious skill in extracting images without looking through the viewfinder of the camera.... or toggling between different camera models and handy tripod extensions from situation to situation.

Abrie and Arash had one projection of a slideshow of all their works running on the exterior of the building. A first at Khoj studios. They also commissioned a hint of absurd into the processings by putting a new signage on the exterior which used the Graphic color element of the City Police with signage information on it. Their second and most remarkable work was the publication that they brought out. Using the most popular and cheapest form of offset reproduction available in the city they printed a small booklet, cheaply bound, with a everyday street print grungy aesthetic. The curation of the photographs within amply displayed the distinct visual vocabularies that both were toying with. Abrie continued with his knack for capturing the most absurdly photogenic visuals and Arash displayed a series, which displayed the different god, and religious icons which auto-rickshaw drivers used to decorate and sanctify their dash board. Bringing out the various culturally derived manifestations of easily available religious stickers it displayed a variety of personalizations of a public service automobile.