INTERVIEW
You have been able to benefit from our program of cross residencies with Villa Bloch in Poitiers, can you tell us a few words about it?
"During my residency at the Cité internationale des arts, I was able to work in collaboration with other artists and resident musicians to develop new areas of work. Continuing this step with the residence at Villa Bloch was the perfect continuation.
I needed time to reflect and concentrate to move forward on my work of collecting testimonies and writing. Close to nature and surrounded by interesting artists and a caring team, I had the opportunity to be calm and have the necessary presence to welcome these stories, which are not always easy to hear. At the Villa Bloch, the juxtaposition of this surrounding serenity and the particular history of the place, occupied during the war, resonates perfectly with my current concerns."
What does it feel like to be in the Cité?
"For almost ten years, I have been living in permanent mobility between different cities around the world. Paris remains for me a place of reference where I always come back. My residency at the Cité internationale des arts has allowed me to create coherence and continuity in my career. I was able to make my projects a reality and make them evolve over time. This time of research, sharing and questioning – which is very important in artistic creation – is sometimes neglected and devalued, especially in the context of residencies where immediate results are expected.
The Cité internationale des arts is a real place of effervescence and meeting. A beautiful community of artists from all walks of life is woven over the years around this place. During my residencies at the Cité internationale des arts, I was able to create continuous dialogues with peers, allowing me to enrich my work and start several collaborative projects. I am accompanied by the competent team of the City, which is interested in the evolution of my work and follows it with interest by proposing to me, through their growing network, new contexts for the creation and dissemination of my work."
BIOGRAPHY
Anahita Hekmat explores the relationship between the site and memory. She experiments with capture and dissemination devices and testes various collaborative processes. She wonders about the place of the spectator and the contextualization of the images produced. Anahita Hekmat works with new technologies and in particular with moving images and sound. She uses temporal media to question the spatial and geographical context and its impact on perception.
These current projects trace the imagination of war and childhood memories as well as the post-cataclysmic mnemonic landscape. For each project, she rediscovers strata of experience specific to each place in relation to political, historical and social factors and as a means of transmitting aesthetic thought.
She frequently collaborates with performing arts companies, anthropologists, engineers and the participating public on in-situ projects during artist residencies. Her work has been shown at the MAMC in Strasbourg, the Centquatre in Paris, the Casa Blanca Museum in San Juan, the Forum of Artists and Pejman Foundation in Tehran, the ISCP in New York, SOMARTS and Minnesota Street Projects in San Francisco, UCLA, UCSB and film festivals such as Rotterdam, Vidéoformes, Oslo, Athens and Beijing Independent.