The Plastique Danse Flore festival is an artistic project dedicated to contemporary plastic and choreographic creation in gardens and landscapes. Its ambition is to raise awareness among a wide audience of the most contemporary artistic creation, by developing the dissemination of plastic and choreographic practices that question the notion of landscape and environment, and by promoting dialogue between contemporary art and historical heritage.
Samira Ahmadi Ghotbi, Iranian artist in residency at the Cité internationale des arts, presents the performance The Cauldron Circle (Le cercle du Chaudron in French) on the occasion of the 15th edition of this festival.
The Cauldron Circle is a collective, choreographic and musical performance. The title of the performance was taken from a hunting technique, the cauldron hunt, in which one encircles a field by moving progressively and at the same pace towards its centre. Here a group of women transcribe a hunting diary of Nasseredin Shah, the king of Iran in the late 19th century. The brief, pictorial descriptions mention the date, place, animal, weapon, distance and completion of the animal.
On a tarpaulin made of acrylic and latex, the artist transferred an archive photo from the late 19th century. The photo shows two panthers hunted by Nasseredin Shah, standing upright in a natural situation, using wooden crutches. However, the weight of the body can be seen relaxed. Nasseredin Shah, the king of Iran, was a passionate hunter and photographer and has brought photography to his country. His hunting trophies and the women of his harem were the major subjects of his photographs.
In parallel to this photographic installation, the artist has installed a video as part of this performance. This is an introspective and almost silent documentary video of a large cultivated garden, filmed from the windows of a flat in Iran. The watering of the plants by a gardener (at the centre of his world) is joined by the filming of the paths in a "shower", tracing with humidity a recoloured earth, which has become the setting for a real painting with moving patterns. This scene of distanced reality – subject to elliptical and syncopated time – stretches or retracts into the uncertainty of a dream.
Samira Ahmadi Ghotbi (Iran) is recipient of the "Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation & Cité internationale des arts" program.