Affiliated Researcher
Email: agnes.remeder@uzh.ch
Agnes Rameder has studied Art-History (BA/MA) in Vienna and Leipzig. Her MA thesis was entitled “Azadeh Akhlaghi’s Photographic Series By An Eye-witness in the Context of Staged Photography in Tehran/Iran” (2016, Univer-sity of Vienna). She is currently a PhD-candidate at the University of Zurich where she works on a thesis on “Lebanese and Iranian Martyrs in Contempo-rary Photo-Related Art-Practices.” She has undertaken a number of research trips to Iran and is currently based in Beirut, where she is an affiliated re-searcher at the Orient Institute and the Departement of Fine Arts and Art His-tory at the American University Beirut. She has also curated a number of ex-hibitions, among them “Capturing Iran’s Past” (2019-20) in Berlin’s Per-gamonmuseum.
The project explores how four contemporary artists question and decon-struct the figure of the “martyr” in the context of Lebanese and Iranian his-tory since approximately 1970. In doing so, the artists critically engage with the state (Iran) and sectarian (Lebanon) visual cultures of “martyr-dom” that are mainly based on photographs. By appropriating and trans-forming these existing images of “martyrs,” the artists not only reflect, re-veal and comment upon the artificial construction of the figure of the “mar-tyr” as such, but also question who is perceived as a “shahid” by whom and scrutinize the relation of the “martyr” to the writing of history, possible am-nesia of episodes of the recent past, the medium of photography and no-tions of ghosts and latency. The methodology encompasses visual close readings, the use of primary and secondary sources, art-and photo-theory, as well as artists-interviews and extensive field-research by lived experi-ence, in the countries of relevance.
Author: Agnes Remeder
agnes.remeder@uzh.ch
“An Overview of the Subject of Death in Contempo-rary Iranian Photography,” in: Hajar Ghorba-ni/Nasser Fakuhi (eds), Death and Dying in Iran, Tehran, Nazer-Ensan-Shenasi, 2021 (forthcoming).
“Tārīḫčeh-yeh ʿakkāsī-yeh ṣaḥnehārāī-yeh šodeh yā “esteīğd” dar īrān (The History of Staged Photog-raphy in Iran),” ʿAkkāsī Magazin, 5, Winter 2020, pp. 62-71.
“Capturing the Past – Talking about Today: The No-tion of the Past in Contemporary Photographs by Shadi Ghadirian, Taraneh Hemami, Najaf Shokri and Arman Stepanian,” in: Agnes Rameder/Martina Mül-ler-Wiener/Margaret Shortle/Stefan Weber (eds), Capturing Iran’s Past: PhotoArt (Exhibition Cata-logue), Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2019, pp. 10-21.
“Azadeh Akhlaghi´s Attempt to Cure Historical Trau-ma by Re-Staging Forgotten Deaths of Iran´s Histo-ry,” all-over Magazin für Kunst und Ästhetik, 12, Spring 2017, pp. 29-39.
Editorials
Claudia Hanslmeier/Agnes Rameder (eds.), KAESHMAESH: Dokumentation 2016-2019 (Exhibition Catalog), Vienna, KAESHMAESH, 2020.
Agnes Rameder/Martina Müller-Wiener/Margaret Shortle/Stefan Weber (eds), Capturing Iran’s Past: PhotoArt (Exhibition Catalogue), Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2019.