Chronicles from Majnun Until Layla is a film project structured in three phases. Each phase has its own format and mode of presentation. Stage #1 consists of architectural designs, models, maps and mockups regarding the Museum of Modern Iranian History. Historical chronologies of this fictitious but possible museum are based on a third-grade Iranian high school textbook entitled Contemporary History of Iran (published by the Education Ministry of I.R. Iran). On the other hand, the architectural system of the building is inspired by the style of Persian miniature paintings. Stage #2 of Chronicles from Majnun until Layla fleshes out the literary and imaginary personae of the film’s characters Layla and Majnun: identities adapted from various classical and popular Middle Eastern love tales. These initial two phases of the project act as models in that they prepare us for the actions, set designs, characters and the dramaturgy of the film. Stage #3, the film itself, will depict a man and woman (lovers) who visit the museum. In the film the lovers (the actors) will appear both as themselves and as Layla and Majnun. As they walk through the museum and interact with the museum’s representations of key moments in the history of Iran, the two lovers will engage in dialogues about stories, memories, rages, desires and dreams that they share both individually and collectively, in reality and in fiction. At the Forum Expanded exhibition Azin Feizabadi presents Chronicles from Majnun until Layla in the form of an interactive installation, merging together Stage 1: Museum of Modern Iranian History with Stage 2: Layla and Majnun. For this installative iteration of his project Azin Feizabadi also presents a part of the film‘s dialogues spoken between Layla and Majnun based on his own autobiographical accounts.
Azin Feizabadi, artist and filmmaker, born in 1982 in Tehran, Iran, lives and works in Berlin. Since 2009, Feizabadi has worked on a long-term multidisciplinary research project entitled A Collective Memory. He is a co-founder of the artist group Reloading Images (2006) and has co-edited the Reloading Images Publication Series (2007–2009) as well as the Sharjah Art Foundation art book then we went in search of somewhere to stay the night (2011). His last film, Conference of the Birds (2011) was premiered at Forum Expanded in 2012.
Interactive installation, overhead projectors, record player, texts and other materials.
