Polaris (the Pole Star) or Mithra as it was called by the Magi (Iran’s astrological priests whose religion was based on the teachings of Zoroaster) plays a fateful role and has a crucial function. Eight times bigger and two thousand times brighter than the Sun, it is aligned with the Earth’s axis of rotation and located some four hundred light years away. To all appearances, Polaris is the celestial vault’s sole fixed point and it therefore indicates the position of the North Pole. Indeed, the Magi used the position of the Pole Star to calculate the first solar calendar.
The first form of writing (1) was born out of this calculation of celestial cycles and the design of irrigation systems. It is pure geometry. In fact, in order to survive the extreme aridity of Iran’s hostile plateaux, the Persians relied on underground water: to gain access to this invisible resource, they invented the qanat, a system of deep underground tunnels and wells that channelled water. The resurgence of this vital resource gives rise to gardens that act as intercessors or mirrors, transmitting forms between the underground and the cosmos.
When surveying the land and the sky in an attempt to understand the world we live in, measuring is mandatory. This measurement, geometry in other words, is directly connected to the way human beings see. Our eyes perceive every object in a logical linear and orthogonal manner. This aesthetic experience of space is also the expression of a language, of architecture and a measure of time. At a period when the Anthropocene is a cause for concern, can this rational vision of the world still be considered as the art of seeing the right things?
This exhibition by Sara Kamalvand (Canada/Iran), who is in residency at the Cité internationale des arts in partnership with La Casa de Velazquez, is curated by Claire Luna (France), who is a recipient of the "Cité internationale des arts & the Centre national des arts plastiques" program.
It is part of a cycle of three exhibitions and several events proposed by Claire Luna entitled La Rencontre des eaux (Where the waters meet).
Sara Kamalvand, architect and artist, addresses in her projects issues such as climate change, resource depletion and ecological footprint through heritage, conservation and memory. Since 2012, she has been conducting prospective research on a millennia-old and forgotten irrigation network at the origin of the cities of Tehran, Palermo and Madrid. She published her first book Le Monument Invisible (The Invisible Monument) in 2020. Guest professor at the École Spéciale d'Architecture, the École de Paysage de Versailles, the École Nationale d'Architecture de Marrakech, she is recipient of the Académie de France in Madrid in 2020.