by Hoda Afshar
The Fold is a visual and psychological investigation of the French psychiatrist and photographer Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault (1872-1934). The project originated from thousands of images de Clérambault took in Morocco of veiled Islamic people, through which he sought to explore his psychoanalytic ideas about covering and fantasy.
The Fold explores the enduring legacy of Orientalist and colonialist photographic practices. It’s an investigation into the regimes of perception and control that determine what we see and how we see. For Afshar, this work questions about the political and aesthetic representation of marginal subjects and about photography’s role in both reproducing and dismantling such representations.
The film component of the project opens with a digital animation showing Clérambault’s death. On the verge of going blind, he committed suicide by shooting himself, facing a mirror. Newspaper articles specified that he was surrounded by “a strange collection of wax models that he enjoyed dressing with rare fabrics”. The film continues with a series of interviews in which researchers from various disciplines issue hypotheses about the figure of Clérambault, sometimes contradicting each other.
Hoda Afshar
Hoda Afshar, born in Iran in 1983, is a visual artist whose practice focuses on the intricate relationships between politics and aesthetics, knowledge and representation, visibility and violence. She is interested in the ways that image-making can either reinforce or challenge our common sense, and the forces that shape perception. Her works invite audiences to reflect on and to rethink how and what we see.
Afshar’s artistic practice embraces a variety of media and approaches – primarily using photography and video, though her recent projects have involved working with archival images.
Afshar’s work has been widely exhibited, published and is part of numerous private and public collections. Throughout her career, she has also received numerous prestigious art awards and prizes.
