Artist: Parastu Gharabaghi
Exhibition title: Dare2bB&b
Venue: Cordova, Barcelona, Spain
Date: March 1 – May 4, 2024
Photography: Roberto Ruiz, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Cordova
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Laozi
Dare2bB&b is a solo presentation by Parastu Gharabaghi. Taking as its starting point the aesthetics and communal social configurations of the hostel, this newly commissioned multimedia exhibition unfolds across the entirety of the gallery space responding directly to the particularities of the architecture. The show features three sculptural installations inhabiting three distinct spaces titled Earth (Room), Moon (Room) and Sun (Room) respectively. While the rooms themselves are thought of in their entirety as artworks, each of them also contains individual pieces.
Earth (Room) is a quiet dreamy lounge space occupying the mezzanine featuring custom furniture and a stop/go animation Left my heart in [insert city here], 2024. Moon (Room) is a UV light bathed room positioned in the center of the exhibition which contains a range of modified and newly created lights and sculptures, as well as a set of musical instruments and amplifiers creating the possibility for a break in the silence by their potential activation by the visitors. These two rooms are followed by Sun (Room), the installation in Cordova’s largest space, whose stark beige interior is compounded by similarly toned modified furniture. Here the viewer can drink freshly-made-to-order green juice and immerse themselves in Are One, 2024 a newly produced immersive VR video made with footage from natural scenery along the Catalan coast.
While the exhibition can be viewed by one individual, it has been conceived to facilitate genuine, and at times awkward, social interactions between the visitors, much like those that may take place between travelers sharing the common areas of a hostel. To this end, the exhibition is activated by performers at various points during the exhibition whose mundane colloquial actions almost pass unnoticed but in reality contribute another layer of noise to the cacophony that is the exhibition.
