Azin Feizabadi

The Farsi word “enqelab” means revolution. For this piece Feizabadi works with the model of a historic seat from the first Iranian parliamentary building from 1906 (Constitutional Revolution), which was itself later partly destroyed and then reconstructed again. By deconstructing the seat into its individual parts and reinstalling it in the shape of the word “enqelab”, the artist refers to the historical optimism and self-reproducing capacity of parliamentary democracy. He also alludes to the history of the building of the Gorki Theatre, which following the 1848 March Revolution once housed the Prussian National Assembly.

The sound piece vocalises cut-up excerpts from the Fundamental Rights of the German Constitution. It will be played from the balcony of the Palais am Festungsgraben five times a day at the times of Islamic call for prayer. The spoken words will follow the musical tunes of the classic version of “Azan”. The harmony or disharmony between the project’s two reference points opens up a field of association which addresses recent debates on the friction between already existing constitutions and the demands for cultural multiplicity.