Jeanno Gaussi
(Kabul, Afganistan, 1973)- Imaginary Friends, 2017
- Neon Green, 2008-2015
- Dreams on Wheels_Delhi, 2014-2015
- SOS - Save Our Souls, 2015
- The War Rug Project, 2011-2014
- Dreams on Wheels, 2013
- Kabul Fragment 02: Sandali, 2012
- Family Stories, 2011-2012
- Peraan-e-Tombaan, 2012
- Kabul Fragment 01: MELA / PICNIC, 2012
- Kabul Fragment 04: Ordinary Heores, 2012
- Kabul Fragment 03: Hit Me, 2012
- Three Fragments from Jerusalem, 2010
Family Stories, 2011-2012
Oil on canvas
60 x 45 cm each painting
(ENG) In 2008, during her first trip back to Kabul since 1978, when she left the country as an infant without her parents (with whom she reunited some years later), Gaussi met Ustad Sharif Amin, a painter of signs, billboards, and commissioned pieces, whose shop was near her home.
He told her that he had managed to survive the collapse and trauma of war through painting. Having always felt estranged from her family history, Gaussi decided to give him the thirty images that, out of many albums, her parents had been able to take with them when they left Afghanistan and that, for her, had always lacked clarity or continuity.
She asked him to replicate half of these original images in paintings. In Family Stories (2011-12), made up of Sharif’s paintings and Gaussi’s recordings of her conversations with him after he had finished each work, Sharif becomes a mediator, a decoder, an investigator able to bring to the surface possible traces of the truth, to reach a sort of objective knowledge. But the question that arises is, can these mediated memories and information fragments build a personal past, or are they simply a constructed reality, a fiction?
(Excerpt from: Andrea Viliani, documenta13: The Guidebook, 2012)
(CAST) En 2008, durante su primer viaje de vuelta a Kabul desde 1978, cuando abandonó el país siendo aún niña y sin sus padres (con los que se reuniría años después), Gaussi conoció a Ustad Sharif Amin, un pintor de signos, carteles y piezas comisionadas, cuya tienda estaba al lado de su casa.
Le dijo que había conseguido sobrevivir al colapso y trauma de la guerra a través de la pintura. Siendo una extraña de su propia historia familiar, Gaussi decidió darle un tercio de las imágenes que, de distintos álbumes, sus padres se habían llevado consigo cuando abandonaron Afganistan y a las que, para ella, les faltaba claridad o continuidad.
Le pidió que replicara la mitad de esas imágenes originales en pinturas. En Family Stories (2011-2012), hecha a partir de las pinturas de Sharif y las grabaciones de Gaussi de sus conversaciones después de que él terminara cada pieza, Sharif se convierte en mediador, decodificador, un investigador capaz de traer a la superficie rastros de verdad, para llegar a cierto conocimiento objetivo. Pero la cuestión que emerge es, ¿pueden estos recuerdos mediados y fragmentos de información construir un pasado personal, o son simplemente una realidad construida, una ficción?
(Fragmento de: Andrea Viliani, documenta13: The Guidebook, 2012)
