Somatic TaleOhrZ[1]. Part I: Who Is the Next Person to Wear It?
Video installation with sound. 
HDV, colour, sound.
Duration: 15 min 05 sec

Somatic TaleOhrZ is a text-, sound- and performance based work comprising two video projections.
The first video with the title “Who Is the Next Person to Wear It?” is a short fairytale which investigates the relation between (queer) desire, embodied home, violence, textile, and exile. The work takes the form of a performance for the video camera: a song and a dance for a “garment-without-destination”. The fairytale narrates the life of Faraq Shayar Alli-Tis Faraz.

“Faraq Shayar Alli-Tis Faraz, 34 years old, was born in 1985 as an intersex child on the island L-A-Z in the Arabian sea, to an Urdu speaking family. S*hir grandmother was a renown Urdu poetess. For the last 15 years Faraq Shayar Alli-Tis Faraz has been living in exile in Greece. Faraq Shayar Alli-Tis Faraz uses following pronouns for s*hirself: s*hi, s*hir, s*him.
S*hi is the becoming of a feminine trans boi.
In 1989 the island in which s*hi was born, sank.
The evacuation of the island lasted three months.
Τhe 4 years old Faraq moved to the outskirts of Karachi with s*hir entire family.
S*hir mother found a job as a seamstress and pattern designer in an export textile company.
Faraq Shayar Alli-Tis Faraz made a lot of friends in the 15 years s*hi has been living as a trans* boi in Greece.
S*hi now decided to visit Karachi for the first time since s*hi had left. What did s*hi leave behind?”

Within the condition of post-colonial global discontent which is unequally imposed on different areas of the world, this work constructs a fairytale in order to celebrate an embodied garment and the sonic power of language. It explores the significance of the (queer) singularity within the plural (queer) collective desire(s).
The work proposes (and wishes) the transformation of the not-any-more towards the (perpetual) not-yet.

The work was especially conceived for the exhibition “Is It Possible to Exist Outside of Language?” which took place at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi, Pakistan during August and September 2019. Organized by the Goethe Institut in Karachi. Curated by Aziz Sohail.