She Who Sees the Unknown

“Everyone knows someone who has seen a jinn.” My friends from Iran tell me this as we enter the dark cavity of the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina to view Morehshin Allahyari’s exhibition, She Who Sees the Unknown.

The Western word and the concept of genies are a perversion of the original Arabic jinnï or the singular jinn. Mentioned in the Koran as sentient non-humans, jinnï are caught between folk beliefs and a repressive political regime propped up by religious orthodoxy. And, like humans, they are a mix of both good and bad.

The show, on view until Aug. 25, has something to say, even to those who don’t know someone who’s seen a jinn. We’re all affected by things like sexism, heartbreak, anger and the climate crisis.

Allahyari, an Iranian artist based in New York, has shown her digital art and 3D-printed sculptures at international biennales and art museums around the world. Here she mixes personal anecdotes with tales of three supernatural beings – Aisha Qandisha, Huma and the Laughing Snake.

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Morehshin Allahyari, “Huma,” 2016

3D printed black resin sculpture, clear resin talismans and HD video, installation view (photo by Don Hall)

Jinnï bodies are not flesh but smokeless flame. Fittingly, the artist represents them in the most immaterial of materials – blazing video projections and plastic, a material that Roland Barthes, in his book, Mythologies, says “almost fails to exist as a substance.”

Huma, her skirt stretched taut against widespread thighs, has been called up from formless plastic dust by the scalding stylus of a 3D printer. The resulting sculpture is contained within a glass case. A computer-generated model of the three-headed jinn, known for bringing the heat of the desert to human bodies, merges with shadows in a video that proposes Huma as an earth-scorching anti-colonial agent of global warming. Even wealth and privilege cannot save you from her fury.

A narrow corridor houses an altar-like setting for Aisha Qandisha. A tongue of red liquid stretches along the floor, reflecting a video that ripples with successive rumbles and sonic booms on the wall above. Known as “the opener,” this jinn emasculates men by entering their bodies through a gash, a reversal of male hegemony. Allahyari introduces emails from an ex-lover who complains of being shut out of her affections, aligning her actions with this jinn, who rejects subjugation.

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Morehshin Allahyari, “Aisha Qandisha,” 2018/19

3D printed resin sculpture, reflecting pool and HD video, installation view (photo by Don Hall)

The Laughing Snake’s den is ringed with mirrors. My reflection is as distorted as the snake’s body, which is twisted in a double loop and crowned by the head of a grinning woman with a mouthful of fangs. An indiscriminate and unstoppable killer, the Laughing Snake was finally defeated with a mirror, I learn as I click through a hypertext narrative on a computer in the corner of the room. The sight of her own reflection caused her to laugh herself to death. The snake’s body tumbles across the screen, small and powerless, as one mouse click after another brings up true stories of horrifying and abased sexual harassment. 

She Who Sees the Unknown means more of us can say we’ve seen a jinn. We’ve also seen radical possibilities embodied in smokeless fire – the power to slash gender-based oppression, immolate the environment and dismantle power structures. ■

Morehshin Allahyari: She Who Sees the Unknown is on view at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina from May 24 to Aug. 25, 2019.

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