Revision, a site-specific installation by Shirin Abedinirad

Iranian artist Shirin Abedinirad realised the “Revision” installation for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018 in Victoria, Australia. A ziggurat made with mirrored retro televisions is the starting point for reflection on the perception of nature.


The Lorne Sculpture Biennale (LSB) held in Victoria, Australia, is the largest outdoor sculpture event. Every two years since 2007, this event created by a not-for-profit association has been taking place for three weeks on the foreshore of Lorne, a popular seaside town situated on the Grand Ocean Road, where the Great Otway National Park meets the ocean.
The theme of the 2018 Biennale, curated by Lara Nicholls, is “Landfall”, a word pun that describes time and place where ocean meets land, as well as a sense of collapse, as in “landslide”. The invited artists were requested to explore the theme of nature and its fragility by using sculpture - including light, sound, performance and projections.
Iranian conceptual artist and painter Shirin Abedinirad (1986), who studied graphic design and fashion design in Tehran and who worked at the "Fabrica" of Treviso, decided to respond to this challenge with an installation entitled “Revision”. “Revision” is a site-specific land art project that mirrors all that is around it: a group of retro televisions whose monitors were replaced by mirrors form a ziggurat on the grassy isthmus at the mouth of the Erskine river.
“This project,” explained Shirin Abedinirad, “invites audiences to watch a nature in a new frame. Instead of watching TV news, which we do not know if it is true or not, we could break the waves that televisions create and watch reality and nature instead. This installation creates a live movie through the simple reflection of everyone and everything around it.”
With “revision”, Shirin Abedinirad continued her exploration of mirrors and the psychological power of their reflective properties. The mirrors of these old cathode ray tube televisions replicate the context around them, that appears to be real, and allow to investigate the intersections between reflection, revelation, illusion and truth starting from the major role of the environment, that dominates the screens.
To create Shirin Abedinirad’s Ziggurat, Powerhouse Geelong was involved, a local project born in a former, abandoned powerhouse transformed into a street art place, where particular attention is paid to the themes of sustainability and recycling.
The Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018 will continue until 02 April 2018.

Christiane Bürklein

Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018 – Landfall,
curated by Lara Nicholls
From 17 March to 02 April 2018
For further information: http://www.lornesculpture.com/
Design: Revision
Author: Shirin Abedinirad - http://www.shirinabedinirad.com
Immagini: Courtesy of the artist