Anahita Bathaie

Anahita Bathaie is taking part in Artists-in-residence program as well as participating in the project “Travel Agency” at KCCC. A. Bathaie spent fourthteen days in Klaipeda: 2014 07 01–07 14.

Anahita Bathaie, born in 1973 in Teheran (Iran), lives and works in Paris. Through performance, video and multiple medias, she develops a work centred on body and language.  She ties her plastic gestures with political and social questions.

During the residence artits prepared an exhibition “Search Query”, which is going to be since 18th July till 10th August at KCCC Exhibition hall.

Search Query

This exhibition re-thinks the idea of the “white cube” and transforms it into a workroom.  Within this workroom different tools are brought forward to aid in an open discussion about Lithuaniaand in particular Klaipeda.  Through this approach the space also develops into a storage space for the ideas with which we are doing our research.  In this day and age the main approach for finding information is through the internet and it is predominantly the internet which sheds light on countries, their histories, traditions, etcetera, through our research. The artist Anahita Bathaie is approaching her understanding of the “traditions” aspect of her exploration through the pictorial tradition of the “tree of life” which not only has importance in Lithuanian culture but also to her Persian and French roots. Although this pictorial tradition has a history in classical and folk representations, her treatment of the “tree of life” is fully modern. Another work, “faith” spelled out in soap, follows the idea that things can transform through cleansing.  This, Paradoxically, goes for “faith” in soap itself.

The exhibition title “Search Query” refers to the computer term for making a request from a search engine when one is embarking on a quest for information.  For the moment this “white cube” engages itself as a workroom with the tools which are an integral part of the artists search and research.

Project ″Travel Agency″ 

The residents involved in ″Travel Agency″ are suggested to reflect on the Klaipeda region and the city, to write diaries and keep their ″route accounting″, which equates the residency to travel agency engaging in cultural journeys.

The topics of the artworks are going to explore two issues: the first relates to the cultural identity that we derive from the personal and collective experience; the second deals with representations of personal experience stories and the construction of conceptual “message” by means of not formal documentation, but a cultural event that causes the reaction of the local community and incorporates it into the process. The project highlights the quest for Utopia in architecture, the time slip, gender and national identity.

The project is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.