REVIEW Nikta Mohammadi: ‘Memory Stone’ at The Lowry

Kirsty Jukes

Art historian and writer Kirsty Jukes reviews Nikta Mohammadi’s immersive film installation and accompanying exhibition ‘Memory Stone’ at The Lowry, Salford. In this, her first institutional solo presentation, Mohammadi, originally from Tehran and now based in West Yorkshire, explores dreams and displacement within the context of the British countryside. Specially commissioned as part of ‘Developed with The Lowry’, the artist development programme that offers a bespoke package of support for artists over 12-18 months to create ambitious, high-quality work, ‘Nikta Mohammadi: Memory Stone’ is available to view for free until 5 May 2024.

At The Lowry, West Yorkshire-based, Tehranian artist Nikta Mohammadi’s atmospheric film Memory Stone (2024) is showing every half hour in The Lowry gallery space upstairs. Following the trajectory of its protagonist Sayēh, this abstract film is threaded through with cobwebs, a cat’s cradle, power lines and yarn which become taut then loose like strands of memory and leave interpretation open to the viewer. Commissioned through the ‘Developed With The Lowry’ scheme, the film's succinct 21 minute runtime examines the relationship between personal and political, outside and inside, private and public, documentary and fiction (1)

Much like Ingrid Pollard’s Pastoral Interlude (1988) series of photographs, Memory Stone highlights the psychological and physical disconnect between land and place felt by many migrants in the British landscape (2). To Pollard ‘a visit to the countryside is always accompanied by a feeling of unease; dread…’ (3) a sentiment keenly felt whilst viewing this brilliant film as Sayēh is distracted by calls from an otherworldly entity. Mohammadi’s latest work claims her own space in the supposed idyll of bucolic life. By interspersing sci-fi and mythological themes throughout the main narrative, a journey that begins with the mundanity of work soon turns into a fever dream. The central figure of Sayēh is overcome by the transmission of sonic waves that punctuate the grassy landscape. A clash of ancient geography and modern technology causes a temporal shift in which past and present merge. Transposing Pollard’s Lake District to the Calder Valley, Mohammadi’s protagonist Sayēh is led on a pilgrimage through memory and time via the remote Northern town of Blackshaw Head.

“Humans are so full of themselves not knowing that the wind and earth laugh at their games”

Rather than presenting the landscape as a passive backdrop for human stories, Mohammadi treats her chosen location as a “creature with agency, one that’s alive” (4) . Sayēh observes the land around him and is almost absorbed into it during his journey. After walking between cottages both derelict and occupied to post his ‘Dreammore mattress flyers’, the interference of static from pylons, satellite dishes and vapour trails, create a sonic siren that pierces the air. A voice pronounces:

“you are the air and earth’s lovechild

or perhaps the Sun’s stepson”

The land bristles with vital energy, glistening minerals in rocks take on an almost phosphorescent quality. A pheasant call rings out. He is at one with his geography. Sayēh apprehensively approaches a group of Fate Sisters led by a woman in red, his relationship to whom is purposefully ambivalent. The figures of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are well known as the ‘Moirai’ or ‘Fates’ in Greek Myth and have similar traits to Mohammadi’s trio of women. Their purpose as the personification of destiny is repeated in the mythology of ancient Avestan religion, as such their story may have been source material for this film. In Zoroastrianism for example according to Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, “Asha, the personification of ‘Truth’ and ‘Righteousness’ corresponds to an objective, material reality which embraces all of existence.” (5) In a similar way to the Fates, this entity represents truth and righteousness. Informed by several workshops with Doosti (6)– a group of Farsi-speaking refugee and asylum-seeking women based in Salford – and a cast from the local area, Mohammadi’s directorial decision to use these apparitions furthers the film's narrative by linking disparate communities to new places. As the women guide Sayēh through fractured memories filled with nostalgia and trauma, he is talked through the happenings of his early life.

“You were born in a military hospital full of wounded soldiers born in the blankets that travelled all the way to the first line born in the depth of winter war and death”

He creates a paper aeroplane from a ‘Dreammore’ flyer and throws it from the hill. This later comes full circle to hit him in the head, the sudden jolt of an early reminiscence long since forgotten, shattering everyday thought. His childhood, although full of beautiful moments as shown in the interspersing flashes of home video which contain an evanescent summer birthday, joyful relatives dancing, exciting car rides and days on the beach, was also fraught with trauma. In the script for Memory Stone, part of the main character’s childhood was spent in Ahvaz in the Khūzestān province of Iran. When researching this area of the Middle East torn apart by the violence of war, a richly romantic and prosperous culture is also very apparent. Exacerbating ethnic tensions in the region, Iraq attempted to annex Khūzestān and the city of Ahvaz in 1980, resulting in the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988 that followed. Ahvaz was close to the front lines and suffered badly with many civilian casualties and a displaced population. The effect of war on the psyche of those terrorised by it is well documented.

In Orkideh Behrouzan’s Ruptures and Their Afterlife: A Cultural Critique of Trauma (2018), the medical anthropologist examines the psychological and social experience of youth in post revolution and post-war Iran as a case study to provide a cultural critique of the concept of “trauma” (7).  She posits that “the war and the Cultural Revolution transformed Iranian society by engendering new forms of civilian life, the significant impact of which on children and adolescents has been largely overlooked” (8). And so, according to Behrouzan, “in the psychological afterlife of social ruptures, alternative histories of loss are written. These alternative histories and emotional states create cultural forms that outlive wars and social crises” (9). This research added context to the potential background of the main character of the film.

Childhood images from Sayēh’s homeland, faded, dream-like, interspersed with the electronic processing of information through contemporary technologies help the viewer to frame past and current eras of social upheaval in two distinct ways. A calling back to traditional roots and a search for something new. In Susan Sontag’s influential essay ‘On Photography’ she states that “people robbed of their past seem to be the most fervent picture takers” (10). Mohammadi’s Memory Stone, although moving rather than a static image, is the epitome of this idea. This link “between photography and death haunts all photographs of people” (11) turning “the past into an object of tender regard.” (12)

The score, composed by Babak Mirsalari, is both stark and shocking, a perfect accompaniment to the unnerving journey of our protagonist, almost a character in and of itself. Calm ambient sound gives way to jarring crescendo, evoking a recollection of  Mica Levi’s ‘Mirror to Vortex’ and ‘Bothy’ on their incredible soundtrack to Jonathan Glazer’s film Under the Skin (2014). Palpitating drumbeats, jangling bells, rushing wind and a haunting Gheychak, a bowed lute traditional instrument used in Iranian folklore and classical music, all enhance the viewing experience in a beautifully layered soundscape. Limbo (2020), a feature film by Ben Sharrock, directly placed a group of migrant men in the stark remoteness of rural Scotland. Filmed in the Western Isles, Omar, a Syrian musician unable to work during his asylum, carries his redundant oud with him wherever he goes. Just as Henry George Farmer compares the similitude of the words al-ʿūd and al-ʿawda (meaning "the return" – of bliss) (13), so the Gheychak in Mirsalari’s score signifies a return for Sayēh to his early childhood before war and bloodshed that tore him away.

Other films recalled during the viewing of Memory Stone include both Cornish folk horror Enys Men and Gloucestershire psychological drama Men. Both films from 2022 see a female protagonist seeing the countryside as a place of escape. The unease of being watched felt in use of heavy breathing and encroaching people give scenes a sinister air similar to that experienced by Sayēh, turning the trope of woman being observed on its head. Most striking of all, however, is the nod to Dick Foster's BFI-produced short The Watchers (1969) which cleverly imbues the English landscape with extra-terrestrial menace (14). Using the same rugged Upper Calder Valley setting as Mohammadi, Foster’s central scene employs the pulsating sound of a synthesiser, whispered voices and a high-pitched whistling that spooks dreamy teen Julie into clutching her head in panic. This locality has inspired many artists to associate its remoteness with a creeping disquiet, including L S Lowry himself, whose gritty landscapes were also informed by weekend drives around this part of the world. With Mohammadi and Lowry’s works just next door to each other in the upstairs exhibition spaces, it was interesting to be able to draw comparisons between the practice of to two artists making such different work so far apart in time.

“One of these days there will be blood”

The colour red is a major signifier in this film, linking memories to the present time. Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, an 1814 taxonomic compilation of colour charts created for its use to the Arts and Science compiled by Abraham Gottlob Werner and later amended by Scottish flower painter Patrick Syme, uses the natural world of animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms to accurately distinguish colour. Red, described here as ‘Scarlet Red’, formed of ‘Arterial Blood Red’ matches many flashes of the colour in Mohammadi’s film. A woman’s cloak, scarf and dress, spun fibres stretching across the hills like yarn umbilical cords, a Fate Sister’s hair billowing in the wind, spilled blood flowing from a golden goblet and a child’s jumper.

Colour theory in film tells us that the repetitive use of a certain colour draws focus to significant details and provokes a psychological response. In this instance, the puncturing intensity of red and its associations with love and death as well as its ability to contrast with the verdant rural landscape and ashen mists of the film's setting is a continuation of established tension. In Iranian culture, red is used in cooking and clothing dyes. It also makes up the red clay of buildings such as those in the town of Abyaneh, close to Mohammadi’s native Tehran at the foot of the Karkass mountains. In the fire temples of Zoroastrianism present in many places across the East including this one, fire and its associated colour red are agents of ritual purity.

A black litter that both absorbs and reflects light is carried from place to place on the horizon during the film. Based on the Nakhl, a wooden structure used as a symbolic representation of the Imam's coffin, the mirrored and tasselled domed form is transported as part of Nakhl Gardani, a historic mourning ritual. The iconography contained in this imagery relates Sayēh’s journey to that of religious pilgrimage, a spiritual journey into his own past.

Upon leaving the screening space at the end of the film, visitors can also access an exhibition containing fragments of the film in the form of photographs, props and projected imagery. Here is the opportunity to interact with items such as the black mirrored Nakhl which acts as a portal onto further dimensions, both literally in its physical manifestation as a mirrored form projecting moving images and metaphorically as a vehicle for remains transporting the spirit from one life to the next, as well as old and new film footage.

At the end of the exhibition space are flyers similar to those posted and folded into paper planes by Sayēh during the course of the film. Printed onto them are ley lines along which the viewer can fold their own toy aircraft. Some have followed these visual aids to create their own simple origami forms left in place to be seen and imitated. Others have perhaps taken theirs with them, launching the finished projectile into the winds outside. The act of folding a paper plane brings back joyful feelings of youth. A period of trial and error during which one could watch the plunging arc of the plane, nose cone crushed into the ground as many times as it took to reach a level of soaring elation. Thoughts of these times hit me unexpectedly in the back of the head, a reminder of innocence lost.

The words printed on the paper, taken directly from the dialogue in ‘Memory Stone’, read as follows -

Lots of folks lose their memories round these ends

There are also some, like you, who find their lost ones. 

This sentiment, central to Mohammadi’s work, moves me as I walk slowly away from the exhibition space. I think about the complexity of memory, lost time and a yearning for simpler days faded, flickering yet vital like grainy home video footage.

All images: Nikta Mohammadi. Memory Stone. The Lowry. 2024

‘Memory Stone’ runs until Sunday 5 May 2024 and an artist network social with Nikta Mohammadi taking place on Tuesday 9 April 6 - 7:30pm at The Lowry. For further details please see:

Nikta Mohammadi: Memory Stone (thelowry.com)

https://thelowry.com/whats-on/artist-network-social-talk-with-nikta-mohammadi-2/

Footnotes

(1)   Bio | Nikta Mohammadi

(2)   Nikta Mohammadi: Memory Stone (thelowry.com)

(3)   https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O107865/pastoral-interludeits-as-if-the-photograph-pollard-ingrid/

(4)   Nikta Mohammadi: Memory Stone (thelowry.com)

(5)   Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, "Heraclitus and Iran", History of Religions, (1963), p.34–49

(6)   Doosti Salford

(7)   Ruptures and Their Afterlife: A Cultural Critique of Trauma. Middle East - Topics & Arguments (META), Vol. 11, Nov. 2018, p.131

(8)   Ruptures and Their Afterlife: A Cultural Critique of Trauma. Middle East - Topics & Arguments (META), Vol. 11, Nov. 2018, p.132

(9)   Ruptures and Their Afterlife: A Cultural Critique of Trauma. Middle East - Topics & Arguments (META), Vol. 11, Nov. 2018, p.133

(10)                     Susan Sontag, On Photography, In Plato’s Cave, p.10 (1977, reiss Penguin Modern Classics 2008)

(11)                     Susan Sontag, On Photography - Melancholy Objects, p.70 (1977, reiss Penguin Modern Classics 2008)

(12)                     Susan Sontag, On Photography - Melancholy Objects, p.71 (1977, reiss Penguin Modern Classics 2008)

(13)                     The Structure of the Arabian and Persian Lute in the Middle Ages on JSTOR

(14)                     Watch The Watchers online - BFI Player

(15)                     A G Werner and P. Syme, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, 2nd Edition William Blackwood Edinburgh, 1820, p.42-43

This review is supported by The Lowry